according to the ABS, the average annual earnings of engineering professionals is about $100,000, while the average for all occupations is $58,000. So just 3 years on average earnings for an engineer, rather than an average worker, would cover a debt of $100,000. Looks like a good investment to me.

http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/ausstats/subscriber.nsf/0/FFD1371A2D70839BCA257AFB000E413A/$File/63060do006_201205.xls

Graduates typically earn much more than non-graduates. It is fair that they should contribute to the cost of their education.

The trouble is, Hasbeen, that employers no longer seem willing to pay for training of any sort, from aprenticships onwards. You are right that someone has to pay, but I'm happy as a taxpayer to take my share of the burden of higher education costs for todays students.

Yuyutsu, I'd like to meet an employer who would employ a self-educated engineer. I presume you'd self-assess too, to rank your qualification?

The current attitude of many employers seems to be that they want to pay the least amount possible for labour - even to the point of importing cheap less-qualified labour from overseas in order to not use more expensive local labour.

It all boils down to what sort of society people want to live in. One that is well-trained and innovative or one where the rich monopolise all the goodies and the poor are kept where they belong below the poverty line.

That seems to be what the current Australian governement wants society to look like.

We live in a society of choices from whether to postpone marriage and having kids to spending money on travelling and buying a new car and putting off the day of reckoning. If universal free adult education is unaffordable now without some one else paying for it, then that tells me that in the past it was unsustainable.

The one thing that I notice in this century is the way so many people want instant gratification. Whether it's plastering themselves with expensive tattoos and piercings or expecting other people to pick up the tab for their indulgences. I can't believe what some people will pay to go to a concert for instance, pay for drugs of some sort or pay for the latest fashion…… Not everyone of course, but certainly enough to make me wonder what their expectations are. Get priorities right first.

Ask 100 people what their priorities are in the way the government spend our money and you will get 100 different answers. There are so many other things also demanded from government however important education is. Life is a compromise and not everyone is going to get to University. Look at your particular abilities. Be passionate about what you are able to do and follow that path. If you are happy in what you do, you will probably be good at it and if you are good at it, you will probably make money. There are so many things in this world that offer opportunities and they don't all start at university. Just make sure you get a good rounded education at school in literacy and from what I sometimes see from university graduates, some didn't achieve even that.

‘morning Allison,

Universities have created and over supply of teachers nationally. In WA there are 800 graduate teachers unemployed. In QLD, of 2012 graduates, there were still 17,000 unemployed in 2013, with similar problems in SA and Vic.

According to BRW surveys, the most valuable degrees are in Healthcare, Engineering, Business, Computer Science/IT, Education, Accounting/Finance, Sustainable Development, HR Management and Agronomy.

Yet The Australian Graduate Survey 2013 shows our universities are still churning out graduates based on subjects focused on volume, or on what students might like to study rather than what might gain them employment.

Natural & Physical Sciences 8.0
Information Technology 2.5
Engineering & Related Technologies 5.3
Architecture & Building 2.6
Agriculture, Environmental & Related Studies 1.6
Medicine & Related 18.2
Education 12.5
Management & Commerce 19.7
Society & Culture 22.2
Creative Arts 7.3

Social, Arts, and Culture is insane at 29.5%. Agriculture and related studies are well below demand at 1.6%, Information Technology is far too low at 2.5% as are engineering and building with 5.3% and 2.6% respectively.

Medicine is an area where huge growth opportunities can be expected as the research grants from the Medicare co-payments become available.

Universities are now less likely to offer such a variety of post graduate studies as the governments ARC directs grants away from such as the endless Climate Change research. Thus reducing the number of Humanities Academics and liberating even more funds.

Arts and Sociology will get a hammering no doubt, as universities are forced to consider the economics of offering too many low value degrees to replace them with high value degrees, but this is also likely to reduce rather than increase costs for such degrees.

This will definitely be the case when universities are required to carry more of the risk burden by covering some of the costs until the student gets a job in Australia and starts earning.

I think the policy fits the problem rather well.

Of course they won't when the government, courtesy of the checkout chick pays for it.

When they needed them they paid, & would again, only when the stock of taxpayer funded engineers started to run out.

The whole higher education system needs a drastic pruning to bring the number of uni educated flipping burgers down to something more intelligent.