Replies to post #505897 on 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.

[newmedman]

I'm sure I've told this story before but I went to our community college between 89-91 and it's still an excellent place for kids like me who had the will to attend school but couldn't afford the university life. I graduated from high school top 10 in my class and had excellent SAT's (32) at the time. I was accepted to a bunch of good schools but on paper it just wouldn't have worked for me even with meager scholarship money.

My family unit was collapsing at the time, so I was on my own. Our community college was very affordable because of the discount I got for living in the district. The most expensive thing for me was the books but I stole most of them. LOL my physics, chemistry and calculus books cost more than the courses themselves so I took matters into my own hands.

The idea was to get enough credits to later transfer to a 4 year program but my wild youth and work schedule sucked that dream up within the first year. The great thing about attending the CC was that there were a ton of vocational programs and tech was one of their good opportunities. I took a bunch of drafting courses when CAD was in its infancy and I loved them so I wound up walking out of there with my certificate... The only problem was that entry level jobs paid peanuts so I still had to work nights to make ends meet and I also hated the office environment..

When I landed my first construction job, I was hooked for life. It paid triple of what it did to sit on my ass all day to render drawings on a computer and unlike most young kids, I could read and understand blueprints so I had a leg up and moved up rather quickly.

Our CC offers a lot of great accredited classes along with a nursing school, law enforcement classes, teaching degrees and a whole range of tech jobs these days. LOL It costs us a butt load of property taxes though I think it's totally worth it for kids who were just like me to be able to find themselves at a reasonable cost if you live within our district.. Our local public schools are no slouches either.

Then, even if you decide to punt and do something completely different like I did, you're not saddled with massive student loan debt for the rest of your life.