New push for up-front uni fees
BY NIKKI ULASOWSKI
SYDNEY — University entry requirements in New South Wales will be lowered from next year, to allow those able to pay up-front tuition fees easier access to courses. The announcement has sparked outrage from student organisations, which have said the plan will increase the gap in education standards between the wealthy and the rest.
Up-front fees vary around the country and can be as high as $100,000 for a degree. Yearly fees at the University of NSW, for example, range from $11,000 for a bachelor of arts to $22,000 for a bachelor of veterinary science. The federal government allowed up-front fees for undergraduate courses in 1997.
The change to the University Admissions Index (UAI), which has been supported by the federal government, will make access to higher education more inequitable, opponents say. Poor students will be subjected to higher entry requirements while students who are rich will be able to buy their way into higher education.
Sydney University vice-chancellor Gavin Brown told the Sydney Morning Herald, "Which is better for the country — a committed trainee paying full fees at Sydney University on a UAI of 93.45 or a taxpayer-funded generalist at another university with a UAI of 53.45? Remember, the fee places are extra places which would not otherwise exist."
Only a small proportion of students have chosen to take up-front fee-funded places since they became available, in part because places funded by the Higher Education Contribution Scheme are still widely available. UNSW, for example, has only attracted 220 domestic fee-paying students this year.
Resistance activist and co-education officer at Griffith University in Brisbane, Adam Baker, told Green Left Weekly argues that the federal government's agenda is to create a users-pays education system. He sees the new measure as an attempt to enlarge the market for up-front fee-funded places.
User-pays principles in education "started as far back as 1985 when the federal Labor government introduced up-front fees for international students", Baker explained. "This was followed by the abolition of free education and the introduction of HECS in the late 1980s. The Coalition has continued on from there."
Baker dismisses Brown's argument that the new fee-based places are on top of existing places. "That's not important. The crucial question is what sort of education system we should have. The government's push for a user-pays education system will result in a two-tier system, with rich students attending 'elite' universities and poor students attending lower grade institutions."
He says that Australians have traditionally supported publicly-funded education. He points to the outrage which followed the 1999 leak of a government document proposing the introduction of a voucher system for higher education.
"Within one week thousands of students mobilised on the streets against this proposal and forced the government to back down", he said. "We will campaign against any attack on higher education. Free education is the only way to develop an education system which is accessible to all who need it. Access to education should not be based on money, it should a basic human right available to all people."