Humanities students will pay up to 113% more for uni courses after Centre Alliance backs changes
Future university students in disciplines such as law and humanities will pay up to 113% more than current students after Centre Alliance threw its support behind the Coalition’s university funding changes, ensuring it will pass the Senate.
On Tuesday the party’s education spokeswoman, Rebekha Sharkie, confirmed its senator Stirling Griff would help the government pass the bill in return for more places for South Australian universities and protections for failing students.
The government will now be able to pass the bill in budget week in time for the 2021 academic year, with the support of One Nation and Centre Alliance, overcoming opposition from Labor, the Greens, and independent senators Jacqui Lambie and Rex Patrick.
South Australian universities welcomed the deal, but Labor and the Greens branded it a sell-out that would harm students.
The bill increases fees for some courses, including humanities and law, to fund fee cuts for other courses, such as sciences, and an overall cut in the government contribution from 58% to 52%.
But Sharkie told Sky News that – unlike its proposed reforms in 2017 – the Coalition had not proposed “blunt cuts” but had gone away and “done its homework” to design a package to improve opportunities for regional universities and students.
Sharkie explained that course fee changes were designed to address a “glut of law students leaving university” while Australia is “importing engineering graduates”.
“The government’s trying to shift the balance there – to focus people on areas we know we have a huge demand for skills,” she said.
“We think the package is very good for regional Australia, for Australia moreover.”
Although Centre Alliance “had a few concerns” with the package, it had “ironed out” differences and will support the bill.
Centre Alliance has won funding for a 3.5% growth in places at South Australia’s three universities, in line with regional universities. By contrast, the package grants 1% growth in bachelor places for low-growth metro universities and 2.5% for high-growth metro
universities.
“South Australia needed to be treated differently because we are a very small state,” Sharkie said. “We were seeking to have the support that will be given to regions such as Tasmania … the Northern Territory, regional Queensland and New South Wales.”
Sharkie said Centre Alliance had also secured “extra protections for students”. In response to concerns the bill would cut students off from government funding if they failed more than half their courses in first year, it has negotiated legislative protection of special circumstances that could excuse a high fail rate. These include illness, death, mental illness, divorce or natural disasters such as bushfire.
It has also negotiated funding for four study hubs across regional South Australia to provide extra support to regional students.
“We also advocated for the reinstatement of a 10% discount for upfront Fee-Help student contributions, the confirmation of a professional pathway for psychology and social work, and a formal independent review of these legislative reforms after 18 months,” Sharkie said.
In July Sharkie said she had “serious concerns” about fee rises of up to 113% for humanities students, warning the hikes were “grossly unfair” on students in year 12.
But in September she softened the party’s opposition by noting “parts of the bill … have merit but what’s proposed for South Australia is concerning”.
One Nation has traded its support for greater protection of freedom of speech on university campuses, a 10% discount for students who pay fees upfront and reinstating a seven-year limit on full-time students deferring fees with government loans.
The shadow education minister, Tanya Plibersek, said it was “cruel and inexplicable” that Centre Alliance would join One Nation to support a bill that makes it harder to attend university and cuts $1bn from federal funding for university teaching.
“An ordinary four-year degree will now cost around $58,000 for many disciplines,” she told reporters in Canberra.
Plibersek said year 12 students had faced “the year from hell” during Covid-19 and will now graduate “with an American-sized university debt at a time when the unemployment market is the worst it’s been in decades”.
Lambie opposes the bill because of the impact on poorer students who might be deterred from university by higher fees.
Patrick said changes negotiated by his former party were a “bandaid” and although he doesn’t oppose improvements for a senator’s home state, such deals should not have been pursued because the bill is “harmful across the country”.
One of the peak bodies representing universities, Universities Australia, has called on the crossbench to back the job-ready graduate package to achieve funding certainty.
But there is still strong backlash among research-intensive universities who fear cuts to their teaching and learning budgets.
The university sector are awaiting Tuesday’s budget in the hope it contains new funding for research but are prepared to accept bringing forward funding from 2024 as an emergency stop gap.
After criticisms the package failed to create new places, the education minister, Dan Tehan, bolstered it by promising an extra $326m for up to 12,000 new places in 2021.