LEGISLATION that allows universities to charge Australian students full fees for the first time in 20 years and which sharply raises the charges that all students must pay finally passed through the senate last week.
Despite strident opposition from students, academics and the Labor and Democrat parties which held up the bill, two independent senators voted with government to pass the act with minor amendments.
The Australian Labor Party and the National Union of Students called it "higher education's darkest day, the worst moment in the history of access to university in Australian history".
Education minister Amanda Vanstone had earlier warned that unless the bill was passed the government would be forced to further cut its spending on higher education. Senator Vanstone had privately urged vice chancellors to lobby opposition senators to try to persuade them to support the bill because of these consequences.
But several vice chancellors spoke out strongly when the bill was passed. Jarlath Ronayne, head of the Victoria University of Technology, said the changes would be disastrous for Australia's future and the country would end up having to import scientists and engineers because students would be unwilling to enrol in the more expensive courses.
As a result of the changes, universities will now be able to allocate 25 per cent of the places they have available to full-fee-paying Australians. Students have not faced full-cost fees since the Whitlam Labor government abolished them in 1974, although successive Labor governments in the 1980s increased the proportion of tuition costs that students had to pay.
Even before fees were scrapped in 1974, however, most students were able to obtain scholarships that covered tuition and other expenses. Only 20 per cent of students in the early 1970s were paying full fees while from now on that ratio could rise to 25 per cent.
The act also introduces sweeping changes to the Higher Education Contribution Scheme by establishing a different set of charges for different courses, and a lower income threshold before graduates must begin repaying.
Under the changes, the subjects a student studies will be grouped in three fee bands according to the tuition costs and the future income earning potential of those who graduate in those fields. A base charge of Aus$3,300 (Pounds 1,150) a year will apply to arts, humanities, social science, education and nursing. The second level, of Aus$4,700, will be charged for mathematics, computing, the sciences, architecture, engineering and economics, while the third fee level of Aus$5,500 will apply to medicine, dentistry, veterinary science and law.
Given that all students now face the same HECS charge of about Aus$2,500, the new schedule represents a 35 per cent increase in the base fee, a 92 per cent rise for the second level and a 125 per cent jump for the third. The only significant concession is the rise in the repayment threshold for some 17,000 students who have a dependent spouse or children.
Students who defer the HECS charge until they graduate begin repaying their debt when they reach average Australian earnings of about Aus$28,500. Under the changes, this falls to Aus$20,700 which will generate more than Aus$800 million over four years. The government estimates that increasing the threshold for students with dependents (to an average of Aus$25,000) will cost $50 million over the four years.