Thanks you, Hasbeen,

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

And if I may add, to Candide: When they needed them and when they would again, they will hire those engineers despite being self-educated and without formal qualifications. Soon they will prove better than their university fellows and be promoted earlier.

Yuyutsu, there are too many Mickey Mouse degrees out there which are not useful to anyone wanting a real job. Many of these students don't have the brains to complete a real degree.

As to your point about getting an education out of books, my experience is that many books as well as the internet are sources of bad information, particularly in the fields of science and medicine.

I have spoken to people from third world countries where parents even have to pay for their children to go to high school, who are amazed at the generosity of the Australian government in regards to education. One Cambodian worker who hoped that his daughter would attend university, was gushing in his praise that the far sighted Australian government even loaned students the money to pay for their degrees. To him, that looked like a very good deal.

It is only because this Allison Orr has lived in Australia all her life, and she has an expectation that the government should give her and her peers money, that she has developed this entitlement mentality.

Are Pilots different in some way to engineers, because they fork out just as much if not more to obtain their qualifications ? They don't whine about getting Government help.

Everyone posting has a point, and few areas of agreement; like parliament at question time!?
Even so, there was a time when students and their parents just didn't pay for their education/degrees! Corporate Australia did, through their tax receipts.
That was before 95%+ of them offshored their operations; when we still were the third wealthiest nation on earth and a creditor one at that!
Corporate Australia paid, because corporate Australia, was the one demanding/needing a steady stream of RECOGNIZED graduates!
We, all of us, are the losers here, and just like big time losers, arguing over the spoils of defeat!
And so unnecessary, when with just of few strokes of a power wielders pen, we could have corporate Australia migrate back to these shores, bringing their long lost tax receipts with them.
What will achieve that, is taking the blinkers off and then creating the world's cheapest and most efficient, simple, unavoidable tax system, where everybody pays something, according to their expenditure patterns!
And 50% of something is always going to trump the 100% of nothing we are getting now, from offshored corporations; and many a giant multinational, most with annual budgets larger than many sovereign nations.
And if we were to once again put Australia and Australians first, we would also roll out the world's cheapest industrial energy.
Just these two, an impossible to refuse invitation for the world's high tech industries, former corporate Australia, and cashed up entrepreneurs/self funded retirees, all of who would, under the proposed system, add very seriously to the tax paying demographic!
Again very doable, for almost anybody, except ideologues, with a almost impossible to cure, extremely severe case of constipation of the brain!?
And doesn't the latter description seem perfectly apt, when applied to almost any self serving Australian parliament; and or, the bulk of the pollies who inhabit them?
Rhrosty.

‘morning Yuyutsu, Hasbeen and Candide,

University Chancellors have been seeking deregulation and more funding. They have their deregulation and the $7.6bn in new funding over the next five years.

Most significant is the deregulation because it allows private providers back into the game, particularly for the TAFE and pre university studies that could potentially benefit some 80,000 students as pathways to university education.

Deregulation will make the market more competitive and focused, this is attractive to industry, particularly for research partnerships which would fund vital post graduate funding. Industry has always funded higher education and tertiary for existing employees, it’s in their interests to do so however, the regulated market has made it difficult for them invest in degrees for which they cannot offer employment.

IMHO this may be a game changer because they have the potential to make the more valuable degrees even more valuable whilst putting downward pressure on costs.

Universities spend some $23bn a year but earn $14bn a year in income from overseas students. Australia needs to focus more on what Australia needs or we will become a big “shop” for others to buy their education