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The Forum > Article Comments > Women will pay a higher price for the government's higher education cuts > Comments

Women will pay a higher price for the government's higher education cuts : Comments

By Amanda Rishworth, published 27/8/2014

The government's plans to apply real compounding interest rates to student debt through the HECS/HELP scheme will result in women paying a greater price for their higher education.

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HasBeen,
I agree. The higher costs could be a good thing if less women take sociologogy and other useless degrees. Especially when so many woman have such a short working life. Many women only work for about 10-15 years full time in their lives. Other times they are pursuing lifestyle goals and want the taxpayer i.e. men to pay for it. If so many woman are going to get degrees there should be incentives for them to remain in the workforce for longer.

But to be honest something like 50% of marriages fail and that's when the costs will just be passed on to men anyway.

Today's society is just geared to providing women with 'choices'.
Posted by dane, Friday, 29 August 2014 3:40:40 AM
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Killarney is right. The debt will be a problem for all young people, not just women, although women are particularly disadvantaged because they have babies. The debasement of the universities can be traced back to the Dawkins reforms of 1988, according to Barry Jones, who was Minister for Science at the time, the greatest mistake of the Hawke-Keating years.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/04/25/1019441281290.html

Before the Dawkins reforms, there were a reasonable number of universities for a country with the population of Australia, plus a network of Colleges of Advanced Education (CAEs). The CAEs gave basic undergraduate degrees and various types of vocationally oriented diploma courses. They were very much cheaper to run than the universities because they didn't give advanced degrees or do research. This doesn't mean that the quality of education was compromised. It was quite possible for a student to do a first degree at a CAE and then go on to a university for further study and get First Class Honours. I know at least two people who did it.

The Dawkins reforms turned all those CAEs into universities or made them amalgamate with universities, dramatically raising costs to ruinous levels and paving the way for an explosion of credentialism and for using the universities to disguise the true extent of unemployment. Research is underfunded because it is spread too thinly, admissions standards have suffered, and staff student ratios have steadily deteriorated. Letting the universities fund themselves by running an immigration scam has created another lobby for unsustainable population growth and wreaked havoc with academic standards. Just talk to an academic about the pressure for grade inflation and passing students who ought to fail. 'The customer is always right.'

I recall a Liberal politician discussing these issues with Terry Lane on Radio National's "In the National Interest". The politician (I forget his name) was saying the same sorts of things as Barry Jones, but when Terry Lane asked him why the Howard Government didn't reverse the Dawkins reforms, he said that it was politically impossible.
Posted by Divergence, Friday, 29 August 2014 4:04:48 PM
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A few years ago I worked with a young Asian man in a nursing home. He was employed as an assistant nurse while completing his university degree. As he was not a sponsored immigrant he had no vehicle, lived in shared accommodation and worked nights, fitting his schooling in there somewhere. He was also battling with being allowed to remain in the country, which I found bizarre considering the commendable efforts he was putting in daily. Luckily for him he got in before this ridiculous addition to fees, and tax?
I realize that the tax paying workers of the country have been chosen to try to repair the deficit. (We should feel honored ) After all its only fair to allow the wealthy to 'maintain the lifestyle have become accustomed to' :)
Out of curiosity, the women attending university who themselves, their parents or partner, cant afford the initial uni fees, and have to take the taxed student loan. Also have to seek employment to live and begin repaying their loan (I couldnt imagine one of the big 'four' granting such a substantial loan, given the clients circumstances). Anyway my question is - would, if she became pregnant, be granted paid parental leave? Either way like Jo said 'they'll just have to tighten their belts'
Posted by jodelie, Friday, 29 August 2014 10:57:35 PM
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One more relevant story. When I began working as an assistant nurse (hail hard working people), not long after the certificate 111 was introduced and became a requirement. Our wages decreased by a couple of dollars an hour but we became qualified and permanent. Fortunately the first course was free.
Down the track, casuals would commence work and training for their cert 111. Ladies and men of varied ages and family situations.
By now there were a couple of agencies offering courses. I cant quote the actual cost of the course but the fee was deducted from the student pay.
How devastating and humiliating for a hard working mother of two, making the change to work in the 'caring' industry, to be receiving $7.00 an hour for several months. She could qualify for partial benefits as long as she is actively seeking full paid employment.
There were a few struggling for quite a while.
Posted by jodelie, Friday, 29 August 2014 11:24:53 PM
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This is another "I want he government to pay for everything" topic.

Behind all the flowery prose, the essential fact is, why should plumbers, electricians and motor mechanics pay taxes to send the children of the middle class to university so that they can be high wage earners in the future? Especially since those university students have little regard for economic principles anyway, and support every crazy socialist humanitarian cause that drains our treasury?

Australia has a system which is fair to students and taxpayers. The government will loan you the money to get a degree provided that you pay the money back when you become a high income earner. This also provides incentive to study hard as the student can not afford to fail.

The next time a boatload of pseudo refugees land in Australia asking directions to the nearest dole office, university students should realise that these people are reducing the Australian government's ability to increase any subsidies it presently gives higher education. A university degree should make you smart enough to figure out he connection between importing productive people and importing people who will always be a drain on the economy.
Posted by LEGO, Monday, 1 September 2014 3:49:13 AM
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LEGO,

The existing HECS system is not unfair, and high income earners also pay tax at higher rates, as well as HECS, if they haven't already paid up front. Interest is charged at the rate of the CPI, so that the money owed is not eroded or inflated in real terms. The uproar now is because the Liberal government is proposing to charge real interest rates on the unpaid balance, so that a small debt is changed into a large debt by the magic of compound interest. This is especially hard on women, because the best years to have babies are when women are in their twenties and early thirties, before most of them have had a chance to pay off the HECS debt.

The other issues are that the university system has been made unduly expensive by the Dawkins reforms, as discussed in my previous post and that a lot of people are going to university who don't have the ability or the motivation to benefit from it. This is great for our politicians, because many of these people would otherwise be in the unemployment statistics.

As more and more people go to university, you also get creeping credentialism. An employer hires a woman with a B.A. in English Literature as a secretary. She takes the job because she is desperate for work. The employer prefers her because she is likely to be easier to train than a school leaver and she can already write and spell. If enough bosses do this, a university degree effectively becomes a requirement for the job, even though it does not require university level skills.
Posted by Divergence, Monday, 1 September 2014 9:33:07 AM
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