Student debt to be slashed, less cash deducted from pay
Federal Education Minister Jason Clare will introduce legislation to slash student debt by 20 per cent and increase the income that graduates need to earn before minimum repayments kick in.
It is the first bill the Albanese government will put before parliament at the start of its second term.
People earning between $60,000 and $180,000 will save hundreds of dollars each year under the changes.
Someone earning $70,000 will save the most — $1300 a year — on minimum repayments due to an increase to the thresholds at which the debts must be paid back.
Savings vary between incomes in the bracket, with people pocketing anywhere from $200 to $850.
Professor Bruce Chapman, the architect of the HECS scheme, said it would make it fairer by giving those on lower salaries more money in their pockets, while their debts remain the same in nominal terms.
'It looks bigger, in real terms it's not bigger,' he told AAP.
But the top priority should be reviewing the price of each degree because humanities students finish with the highest level of debt and end up being the lowest-paid graduates.
'All the prices are wrong,' Chapman said.
Clare said reforms were being looked at, after the failure of the former Liberal government's job ready program.
The program aimed to fill skills shortages by making it cheaper to study courses such as teaching, nursing and psychology while doubling the cost of popular degrees including law, communications, business, humanities and the arts.
'If the intention there was to reduce the number of people doing arts degrees, it hasn't worked,' Clare said.
'People study the courses they're interested in, that they want to do, that they love.'
The universities accord final report branded the program 'deeply unfair' because it punished students following their interest, and called for it to be scrapped.
It recommended that fees reflect future earning potential, as part of 47 recommendations to reform the sector.
Other aspects about how HECS is paid off also needed to be addressed, Chapman said.
HECS repayments are taken from a person's pay slip if they earn above an income threshold.
But the money is not immediately taken off the HECS debt and is instead deducted as a lump sum at the end of the financial year after indexation has been applied on June 1.
This means a higher debt is indexed as the repayments have not been deducted and the university accord recommended it be reformed to make the system fairer.
The Australian Tertiary Education Commission has been established in an interim capacity to implement long-term university reform and will review the HECS system over the next 12 months.
Clare will introduce further legislation in the coming months to set the commission up as a permanent body.
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