Higher education savings - students pick up the bill

Image source: Vic Department of Education

The government’s Statement on Higher Education announces savings measures in three areas. Reaction from, and on behalf of, the higher education sector has been negative. The peak body representing universities, Universities Australia, has condemned the cuts.

Yet it is not the universities that will bear the brunt of the savings but their students.

And then there were none: HECS discounts

Image source: WA Dept of Commerce

On 13 April 2013 the Australian government released a Statement on Higher Education. One of the three savings measures announced is ‘removal of the 10 per cent discount on paying university fees upfront and the 5 per cent bonus received for voluntary repayment of HELP debts’. 

This move is the end of the line for two incentives that have been whittled away over the past ten years. Abolishing them is expected to save $230 million.