Rising by degrees

At the moment, arts graduates are saddled with a $17,604 HECS debt for their three-year course. Engineering graduates with a four-year degree have a debt of $33,452, and law graduates end up having to pay $39,168 for a four-year course.

Graduates may then go on to study graduate certificates, diplomas and masters-by-coursework programs. Most of these courses charge full fees, which range from $10,000 to more than $200,000.

An MBA at the Northern Territory's Charles Darwin University is $20,600, but one at the Melbourne Business School is $75,000.

Then there are the four-year graduate medical programs that offer HECS and full-fee places. Local students who don't get a HECS spot at the University of Melbourne will pay $237,920 for the four-year course, according to the university's website. Dental surgery is the same price. On top of those sums, students still have to pay the debt they incurred from their undergraduate studies.

Meantime, students continue to incur costs and debts. In last week's budget, Start-Up Scholarships were converted from grants to loans.

What next? Will HECS fees increase? After all, the government is ripping $2.3 billion from universities to help pay for the Gonski school reforms. A fee rise could plug the hole.

Tuition increases are not inconceivable. The opposition, which is likely to win the September federal election, has said it wouldn't reverse the cuts. The Liberal Party also has a record of increasing fees.

The Group of Eight universities has also been lobbying for the power to set their own undergraduate fees. This could open the fee floodgates at other universities if the Go8 got its way.

How much debt can students stand? Would fee rises discourage students from enrolling at university?

According to a new British study published in the journal Educational Studies, fee increases can have a negative impact on students' decisions about going to university.

The University of Bath study concludes that year 12 students are becoming increasingly anxious about their study choices as a result of fee increases introduced in England in October last year.

Of the 1549 year 12 students surveyed for the study, one-quarter of them are considering postponing university studies and almost one-fifth are thinking about cheaper higher-education options.

The study's authors say it confirms previous research that financial issues are paramount when students are thinking about their study choices.

"This factor is more important than institutional quality, institutional and country reputations," the study's authors say.

The British government has allowed universities to increase fees from £3375 ($5195) a year to up to £9000 ($13,853) a year. An unpublished 2009 survey for the Browne Commission, which examined the funding of Britain's higher education system, concluded that students and parents viewed tuition fees of £6000 ($9323) a year as the highest reasonable amount for universities to charge.

The Bath study also indicates a considerable percentage (36 per cent) of students are thinking of fleeing England to find a cheaper university education in another country.

"A paradoxical situation may emerge in which many foreign students seek a quality education in the UK, whereas at the same time, many home-grown students flee the country in search of an affordable education," the study's authors say.

A Telegraph article in January highlighted that English students are making a beeline to German universities because they can get a free education. German universities are free to all European Union residents. Bavaria and Lower Saxony are the last states to charge fees, but will be abolishing them this year.

"Instead of paying £9000 a year in fees to a second-rate British college on the edge of a ring road, you attend a well-respected, centuries-old academic institution in an attractive city for nothing," the article says.

An increasing number of courses at German universities are being taught in English.

There are lessons in the Bath study for Australia. The National Union of Students maintains that changes to Start-Up Scholarships will stop poorer students from considering a university degree.

They would definitely think twice about university if fees increased. The HECS debt can just get too big.

* "The decision-making and changing behavioural dynamics of potential higher education students: the impacts of increasing tuition fees in England", Educational Studies, vol 39, issue 2, 2013.

Links

telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/9790250/Why-British-students-are-heading-to-Germany.html

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