Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

It's changed much here too .. From free university to $15,000 a year for an arts
degree — tracking the cost of Australia's higher education over three generations

By Jessica Black Thu 27 Jul 2023

[...]

Higher education was free in Australia from 1974 until 1989 — when the Hawke Labor government introduced the Higher Education Contributions Scheme (HECS).

Initially, all degrees cost the same — at first, $1,800 a year — until the Howard coalition government brought in three-tiered rates in 1996. At the same time, fees rose from a $2,454 flat fee to $3,300 for band one degrees, which included education and humanities, and $5,500 for band three degrees such as law and accounting.

[ interactive ]

The idea was that the higher a student's earning potential, the more they should pay for their degree.

In 2005, fees increased again.

[...]

Under the Morrison government's Job-Ready Graduates Package, humanities was put into the same bracket as law, pushing up fees by 113 per cent. At the same time, science, maths and teaching fees decreased.

It was intended to deter students from some degrees (some called it a penalty), and encourage students to study in areas considered "national priorities".

"It was very much a slap in the face to all of us," Jade said.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-27/generational-hecs-debt-university-access-higher-education-cost/102480290

That last i put in to your "And I'll add: The people who fuss about "useless courses" need
to shut it. A real education is about learning. It is not job training." .. which i agree with.

Conservatives see it differently.

One more late excerpt:

Hope brought Jacquie Argent and her two sisters to Australia. But now she is far less hopeful.

"I'm very sad, not so much for my granddaughters because they're very strong young women — they will not go into the professions that they wanted to, but they will succeed in life," she said.

"But I am very concerned that their children will have no hope, and I think that's what we're losing as a society."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-27/generational-hecs-debt-university-access-higher-education-cost/102480290

It's the sod-awful lower taxes trend.