To challenge its drive to war and to force the government to invest in its people, students need to organise, argues Harrison Brennan.
Tertiary education fees (HECS-HELP)
Suzanne James asks if Australia can really find its way back to Whitlam-style free education policy when so many are ensnared in a hunger-games economy, driven by the greed of the privileged, privately-educated few?
In the midst of a worsening cost-of-living crisis, more than 3 million Australians continue to be burdened by student debts. Isaac Nellist reports.
Any hopes raised by former prime minister Paul Keating's appearance at the royal commission into aged care were dashed by his advocacy of a user-pays system, writes Suzanne James.
Former PM Paul Keating's user-pays aged-care 'solutions' will not help, argues Jim McIlroy.
From July 1, students will be forced to start paying back their higher education loans much earlier, after the federal government found a way of getting part of its stalled education attacks through the Senate.
From the images doing the rounds, education minister Simon Birmingham had the crossbench senators right where he wanted them: in the palm of his hand.
On May 17, I received an email from Centrelink advising that I would no longer be eligible for the student start-up scholarship.
This means the $1035 payment that helped to pay for my textbooks, university car parking fees and other course materials will now only be available as a loan I will have to pay back on HECs.
Losing this start-up scholarship will hurt many students, with welfare payments hardly keeping up with the ever-increasing cost of living and rent.
Federal Minister for Education and Training Simon Birmingham has outraged students with his announcement of cuts affecting higher education that will come in the federal budget on May 9. Speculation is rife about the impact the cuts could have on students.
The cuts revolve around a 7.5% increase in university fees. But the reality of the fee hike could be much worse.
In conjunction with the budget’s $2.8 billion in cuts to university funding, universities could be forced to raise student fees by a minimum of 25%.
The federal Minister for Education and Training Simon Birmingham will release a report on May 8 commissioned by the government that will allegedly indicate that universities receive adequate funding for most courses and that their revenues are growing faster than their costs.
This report will be used to justify a proposed $2.8 billion funding cut that will raise the costs of course fees and mean that students will need to repay their HECS debts sooner.
Whether it is welfare or wages, the income of youth and students seems to be under attack from the government and big business sectors.
From the beginning of this year, commencing students will no longer receive the start-up scholarship of $1025, paid in two instalments over the year. New students now have the option of applying for a start-up loan of the same amount, which, similarly to the HECS debt, will be repaid to the Australian Tax Office once their income reaches a certain level.