Fear of fees and debt ‘keep Australians out of university’

Financial factors are considered the primary barriers to university participation in Australia, with people from educated backgrounds among the most likely to see cost as a deterrent.

A University of Melbourne study has found that “expensive” tuition fees are the biggest perceived obstacle to university. Fifty-nine per cent of the 1,000-odd respondents cited fees as a reason that people of similar backgrounds in their twenties and thirties might not pursue higher education.

Debt aversion was also a major impediment, with 52 per cent of respondents saying “reluctance to take on study loans” was keeping their counterparts out of university. Living costs and “insufficient” financial support were mentioned in over 40 per cent of responses.

Overall, financial hurdles easily eclipsed personal or social barriers – such as perceptions that university was hard work or an alien environment – as a hindrance to higher education. The only comparable factor, cited by 52 per cent of respondents, was a belief that university degrees “may not lead to a better job”.

Degree-educated people proved slightly more likely than those without university education to regard financial issues as a deal-breaker. Australian-born respondents were considerably more inclined than their overseas-born counterparts to express scepticism about loans or the career benefits of degrees.

Study author Nicolás Salamanca said the findings were “puzzling” given Australia’s “world-class” system of income-contingent loans to cover tuition fees. “Foreign-born respondents are less likely to be eligible for financial support,” noted Dr Salamanca, a senior research fellow at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research.

“I expected to see people with higher income levels or with a university education perceive much lower barriers to university education. This research challenges the view that barriers to university education are driven by socio-economic disadvantage.”

The findings come from polls conducted in July and August as part of the Melbourne Institute’s “Taking the pulse of the nation” survey series, which has tracked Australians’ social and economic views every few weeks since April 2020.

Earlier surveys in May found that degree-educated people seldom regretted their decisions to attend university, with almost half of respondents saying they would have preferred higher qualifications.

About 40 per cent of people aged between 25 and 44 said they envisaged further university study in the future, with bachelor’s graduates most likely to plan for upgraded credentials.

But many reported a financial toll, with half of the respondents saying their student loans had affected them later in life. “Programmes that allow borrowing against future earnings still have downsides,” wrote report author Sarah Dahmann. “For most borrowers, their student debt has affected major life decisions such as housing choices, career paths and family planning.”

A 26 October Senate Estimates Committee hearing was told that outstanding student debt was likely to rise by about 6 per cent next year following a near-record 7.1 per cent hike in April. “What do you say to the 3 million Australians who are going to face another increase in their student debt next year, some 15 per cent over three years?” shadow education minister Sarah Henderson asked officials and government representatives.

“How are they going to be able to cope with that level of debt impost on their student loan? Is there any attempt by the government or any work by the department to alleviate that level of student debt?”

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com