Trim top tier of fees, Universities Australia tells Canberra
Australia’s government should unwind the “worst excesses” of the Job-ready Graduates (JRG) reforms by “eliminating” the top tier of tuition fees, according to Universities Australia (UA).
The representative group proposes that Canberra reduce the “highest level” of student contributions – the A$16,992 (£8,178) annual fee currently applied for law, accounting, economics, commerce, communications and humanities courses – to the next tier of A$13,241 paid by medicine, dentistry and veterinary science students.
The government would need to compensate universities for about A$770 million of lost income, UA says, citing Innovative Research Universities modelling. But the cost would be dwarfed by an estimated A$1.7 billion withdrawn from the higher education sector through JRG and other funding changes since 2017.
“It would be a serious downpayment on a fairer funding system,” UA chair Carolyn Evans will tell the National Press Club on 27 August, according to speech notes.
Evans will say that the JRG fee changes have alienated disadvantaged students, who deserted higher education at twice the rate of their wealthier peers during the latter years of the pandemic. “Indigenous students, nearly a third of whom are enrolled in society and culture degrees, have also been particularly hard hit.”
Such outcomes run counter to the government’s policy goal of “increasing participation in equity groups”, she will say.
Steep hikes to humanities fees were the most disliked aspect of JRG, the Morrison government’s workaround to accommodate more students during a Covid-induced financial crisis. The then government also guaranteed domestic teaching grants, bankrolled extra online courses and gave universities an additional A$1 billion of research funding.
Universities did not oppose the package at the time, despite concerns from academics, but have complained vociferously ever since. A review of the scheme, originally flagged for 2023, never eventuated.
Recently asked whether JRG “undermines our equity goals”, education minister Jason Clare said the package had been an “abject” failure. “I’ve never ruled out reform here – it’s all about what you do first,” he told the Australian Financial Review Higher Education Summit earlier this month.
“The [Universities] Accord recommended that we fix JRG, but it also recommended a whole bunch of other things. Whether it’s the structure of universities or whether it’s fixing JRG, reform is a bit like eating an elephant – one bite at a time.”
Under its terms of reference, the Australian Tertiary Education Commission – which began operating in interim form in July – has been tasked with “commencing work to better understand the cost of teaching and learning” so that the commission can advise on “overall higher education funding levels per student” when it is fully established.
This “complex process” will “take time”, Evans will warn the press club.
Independent politicians also want faster action. A bill introduced on 25 August by Sydney MP Dai Le would shift humanities subjects into the lowest fee band, currently A$4,627 a year. Melbourne MP Monique Ryan has been campaigning for JRG’s disbandment since her 2022 election. Backbenchers from the governing Labor Party privately share her views, according to The Guardian.
An open letter in July urged the government to replace JRG with a fee regime that “does not punish” humanities and social sciences students. The letter was signed by over 80 authors, publishers and other public intellectuals including seven Labor luminaries: former ministers Kim Carr, Gareth Evans, Peter Garrett and Barry Jones; former shadow minister Cheryl Kernot; and high-profile advisers Anne Summers and Don Watson.
“In 2021 the Labor caucus…criticised the JRG bill for being ‘inequitable’, ‘pernicious’ and ‘perverse’,” the letter says. “We are profoundly disappointed that the Albanese government has still not acted on its 2021 convictions and repealed JRG.”