The Greens have proposed free undergraduate university degrees and TAFE qualifications as part of a five-point higher education plan that the party says would transform Australia.

The suite of policies unveiled ahead of the 2019 election also includes major funding increases for tertiary institutions, greater job security for university staff, a higher income threshold for student debt repayments, and boosts to student welfare payments.

Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi. Credit:James Brickwood

Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi said the plan would "change forever how we think about education" and represent a major shift from decades of policy that had seen higher education treated like a "piggy bank" by governments and universities being run too much like businesses.

"It's time to end the debt sentence. Young people are graduating from university and TAFE with crushing debts that take almost a decade to pay off," Senator Faruqi said, forecasting that 1.3 million people would benefit from free TAFE and university education by 2023 under the plan.