Degree Factories and the right to a fee education
by James Frazer*Abstract
The Prime Minister was recently featured in the Adelaide Advertiser making comments to the effect that he would not be ‘a dictator’ ‘drunk on power’ post 1 July when his government assumes control of both houses of parliament. The Howard government may not be a ‘mad dictatorship’, but it is without doubt an enemy of academic freedom obsessed with tightening its regulatory control over universities, whilst at the same time decreasing its share of funding.
I won’t go into the Howard government’s attack on academic freedom here, the ministerial intervention into funding of particular courses and the attacks in the media on historians are already well documented. What I will discuss in this article is the experience of university students – those who have been at the sharp end of the Howard government’s higher education reforms. In particular I will address three key areas of concern for students today: balancing work and study, the cost of tuition fees and the introduction of voluntary student unionism.
Balancing work and study
Since 1996 eligibility for student income support has been dramatically wound back through a combination of parental means testing and age of independence criteria. This has forced more students to live with their parents for the duration of their studies, placing greater strain on family budgets. More students have also been forced into long hours of employment in an effort to finance their studies and associated living costs. For many students economic survival has now overtaken study as their prime motivating factor during their time at university. According to the Australian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee (AVCC), seven in ten students are in paid employment, an increase of 50% since 1984. Students average 14.5 hours of work a week, a threefold increase since 1984.(1) This has had a detrimental impact on ‘campus culture’ – the sphere of student organised extracurricular activities such as clubs and social and political activities. Participation in student-organised activities is on the decline. Long gone are the days of large political rallies and debates. Many students no longer spend most of the day at university, nor do they share a common lunch hour. Instead these students attend university only for scheduled tutorials, preferring to undertake most of their studies and lectures online at their own convenience. Campus culture is dying because nobody has anytime anymore in between lectures and work shifts. For many students increased time in paid employment is also having a detrimental impact on their studies. Two in ten students surveyed by the AVCC said paid employment adversely affects their studies ‘a great deal’, whilst one in ten students ‘frequently’ miss classes because of employment.(2)
The cost of tuition fees
The cost of a university education has skyrocketed under the Howard government. In 1996 students paid $2,442 per year for their degrees, regardless of course. Students now pay between $4,808 and $8,018 per year, a result of last years’ 25% increase in fees.
This is the second time the Howard government has drastically increased HECS charges (HECS charges were increased by 65% in real terms in 1997). The government claims HECS increases were necessary because students do not pay a fair share towards the cost of their education. This is patently false. Students already contribute on average 40% towards the cost of their education, with some courses such as Law being as high as 102%. The Howard government only contributes 40% towards the cost of students’ degrees. The Howard government’s justifications for fee increases seem even more ridiculous when one considers that students are also taxpayers, both now and in the future. They are already paying more than enough through income tax to pay back any taxpayer-subsidised costs.
Such drastic hikes in fees are the most obvious example of Howard’s attempts to shift the ‘burden’ of financing higher education off the government, and on to the shoulders of university students (the customers). This user-pays strategy now appears to be affecting demand for higher education. Recent figures from the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee, reported in the Age (February 4, 2005), show the number of students who applied to study at universities in 2005 fell by 12,123, or 5%, compared to 2004. Continual growth in student fees is likely to interact over time with other spiralling costs associated with study (income forgone, ancillary fees, availability of income support, etc.) to further entrench existing systemic barriers to participation in higher education. Recent evidence of debt aversion amongst disadvantaged groups suggests we may well be fast approaching a threshold beyond which many individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds will judge the price of undertaking higher education to be in excess of its private benefit.
The issue of high levels of student debt is also of concern. A recent study into the income and wealth of ‘Generation X’ commissioned by AMP has identified HECS debts as a significant factor contributing toward a decline in ‘Generation X’s’ wealth accumulation chances.(3) Growing debt is blamed for a delay in entering the housing market, starting families and a decline in the generation’s share of total wealth relative to the ‘Baby Boomer’ generation. The share of total wealth held by 25-39 year olds declined from an estimated 27% in 1986 to 17% in 2003.(4)
Although much of the research into the financial impact of HECS debts is indicative rather than conclusive, the national blow-out in student debt should be cause for concern. In 2003 the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that total student debt was around $10 billion. This is expected to reach $13 billion by 2006. A recent sitting of the Senate estimates hearings (February 2004) has revealed that nearly 30% of this total student debt is doubtful and unlikely to be repaid due to death and insufficient earnings. This doubtful student debt has also increased by over 230 per cent between 1996 and 2003.(5)
Voluntary student unionism
On 15 March 2005 Federal Education Minister Dr Brendan Nelson introduced a Voluntary Student Unionism (VSU) Bill to Parliament. The Higher Education Support Amendment (Abolition of Compulsory Up-front Student Union Fees) Bill 2005 adopts a similar model to legislation introduced by Nelson last year. The Bill seeks to prevent universities from collecting a student services fee from all enrolling students at their particular university. If passed by the Senate this Bill will strip student organisations of the funds required to administer their diverse range of services.
Under VSU, the level of services and representation offered by student organisations would be contingent on operating funds provided by an active and voluntary membership base. The Western Australian experience of VSU in the mid-1990s has shown that maintaining a viable level of operating funds and members is difficult when newly enrolling students are faced with a choice between short-term hip pocket concerns, and less tangible social goods such as rights and representation. Student organisations currently function on the principle of universal contribution of fees in order to fund a range of not-for-profit services that function as a vital safety net. At my university, Flinders, these services include: childcare, emergency loans, welfare advice, an employment service, academic rights advocacy and representation at all levels of university decision-making. These services were established because the university and State and Federal governments were unwilling to provide them, despite a clear and growing demand. VSU will shut these services down unless student organisations can somehow provide them on a commercial basis. University administrations are not willing to provide the necessary funding nor provide these services themselves. Without academic rights, welfare and other student support services the only right students will have in the higher education system, will be the right to pay for their degree. VSU will silence the voice of students in the university and in the wider community. This is particularly unfortunate when one considers the historic role students have played in advocating progressive social and environmental causes.
Concluding remarks
University students have been given a raw deal by the Howard government. Students are paying more to be at university less. The quality of the university experience has also suffered as fewer students are able to devote the majority of their time to their studies. The increasingly prohibitive costs of study are not only hurting currently enrolled students, they are also pricing those from a lowincome background out of higher education. In this respect, the Howard Government’s higher education policies are clearly entrenching existing inequalities within the wider community. The Howard government’s voluntary student unionism agenda is a particularly nasty and ideological piece of legislation. VSU will lead to the collapse of support services essential for many students’ survival in Howard’s free market universities. In addition this legislation will take away students’ right to collectively advocate for improvements to their conditions and represent themselves as a group with particular needs and interests, both within the university and the wider community. The possibilities for students to independently and effectively advocate under the Howard government are decidedly bleak. In the ‘brave new world’ of the Howard government students and those seeking to access higher education will have little more than the right to a fee education.
Without academic rights, welfare and other student support services the only right students will have in the higher education system, will be the right to pay for their degree.
- AVCC, Paying Their Way: a study of undergraduate university student finances, 2000, AVCC, 2001, p. 2
- AVCC, (2001), op.cit, p. 2
- NATSEM, Generation Xcluded, Income and Wealth Report, Issue 6. November 2003, p.4
- Ibid, p.15
- The Weekend Australian, 21-22 Feb 2004
References
AVCC, Paying Their Way: a study of undergraduate university student finances, 2000, AVCC, 2001
NATSEM, Generation Xcluded, Income and Wealth Report, Issue 6. November 2003,
The Weekend Australian, 21-22 Feb 2004
*James Frazer completed Year 12 at Blackwood High School in 1996. He was a student at Flinders University between 1997 and 2001 and was awarded a B.A. (Hons), specialising in politics. Upon completion of his degree James spent two years travelling.