HIGHER education reforms proposed in the Federal Budget are a big concern for current high school students contemplating a tertiary education.
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With the federal government planning to deregulate tuition fees from 2016, there will be a 20 per cent reduction in the level of government funding, which will have a dramatic effect on the cost of a degree.
Most course fees are expected to rise while others are expected to remain steady, and some may drop.
There are also plans to increase the interest charges on HECS/HELP debts up to a maximum of six per cent.
When the Western Advocate spoke with Year 11 students from Denison College Kelso High Campus, they said increased course costs may affect what they chose to study at university.
While students enrolled after May 14 this year will be charged under the new arrangement, students graduating in 2015 will be the first year group to have to pay a higher student contribution for their entire degree.
Year 11 student Tom Rosser said he thought people were be more likely to lean towards the cheaper courses.
“I’m not sure what I want to do, but perhaps something to do with language,” he said. “But when the time does come to decide and if I am tossing up between a few options, I imagine I would go for the cheaper course.”
He said increased costs would also affect whether or not he moved away from Bathurst for tertiary study.
“It’s an added cost to the expenses you already have to move to another place.”
Fellow Year 11 student Olivia Sheehan, who wants to study psychology, said she thought it would be hard to enter the workforce with so much pressure to pay back expensive university fees as quickly as possible.
“I want to travel and to have a family one day, I will probably have to get a mortgage. I don’t want to have to start my career worrying about paying my debt back.”
Kelso High careers adviser Denis Behan said that as the majority of students from the school tended to use HECS to pay for their fees, he did not think it would change their mind about what they wanted to study.
He said living costs would still be the determining factor for where most students chose to go to university, but said higher fees would probably mean students would more seriously consider what they wanted to do.
“I think it will deter students who aren’t sure about what they want to do ... who think ‘I’ll go to university and try it out’.”
