The academics say that by the 2017–18 financial year HELP debt will grow to be $70.4 billion, affecting 26 per cent of people aged 18 to 54. Do students really understand what their actual debt will be? The scary thing is that some students' individual debt is bigger than they anticipated. Students who studied part of a degree and then swapped to another course have added six months to a couple of years more to their debt. There are also students who enrol in subjects and degrees they decide they don't like and neglect to withdraw from them by the date they start to incur their debt.

Please take note: The cut-off date for withdrawing from courses without incurring financial penalties is usually in March. Check with individual universities for the date they have set. Some students do an arts degree and include subjects from other faculties. The fees for those subjects may be higher than for the arts ones. For example, an arts subject costs $782 and a law subject $1305, based on this year's charges. Many students are also going to be saddled with an undergraduate and postgraduate debt. Not that many first-years or other undergraduates will be thinking about that. To many, it seems like years before they'll start paying back their debt, particularly a postgraduate one. The reality is that many graduates go on to do postgraduate course-work study, most of which is full-fee paying. There are myriad postgraduate certificates, graduate diplomas and masters course in areas such as law, medicine, international studies, publishing, business and social work.

After doing an arts degree, Third Degree's god-daughter's intention was to study a master's in art curatorship. She has since left for America. Her arts degree would have cost about $18,000 plus fees for the master's. If she were unable to secure one of the limited commonwealth-supported places, she would have been up for the full-fee of $50,053 for the two-year master's at Melbourne University. (Although she is now living in America, she will be required from 2017 to make repayments on her government student fee loan for the two years of her arts degree based on her world-wide income. Students and graduates living overseas haven't had to repay their loans until now). Many students are signing up for graduate law courses, which are expensive. This year La Trobe University has introduced a Juris Doctor, which will cost local students $32,990 for each year of the three-year degree. International students will be charged the same. The whole degree will cost $98,970. When you add the cost of this to an undergraduate degree, those enrolled in the JD will have a combined debt in excess of $100,000. An undergraduate degree is a prerequisite for a JD.

Universities Australia modelling shows that a three-year undergraduate degree takes about 17 years to pay off. Imagine how many more years graduates would take to rid themselves of their postgraduate debt. Here's another common example. A three-year undergraduate science degree costs $26,751, based on this year's figure. If the student has to pay full fees for a four-year postgraduate medical degree at Melbourne University it will be about $260,000. This year, there are up to 90 full fee places for local and international students in the course, and 260 places for commonwealth-supported students. And at many universities the one-year graduate diploma in education has been turned into a two-year master's degree. Most students get a Commonwealth-supported place, but some pay full fees. Nevertheless because it's taking students longer to become teachers, it costs them more and they are in debt for longer. Instead of taking four years to become a teacher (three-year undergraduate degree and one year dip ed), it now takes many students five or six years depending on whether they do an honours year in their undergraduate course. Australia is clearly not the cheapest country to study in. In 2013, Third Degree reported that Germany was phasing out university fees.

On the other hand Australian graduates only start to repay their debt once their salary reaches a particularly threshold. This type of loan has meant that more students can access universities. But it still leaves graduates with big debts. So much focus now is on entry scores to universities. It's time there was more discussion about the level of debt students may amass and how best they can manage it. Links business.unsw.edu.au/research-site/publications-site/ejournaloftaxresearch-site/Documents/08_HighfieldWarren_HELP.pdf studyassist.gov.au/sites/studyassist/helppayingmyfees/fee-help/pages/fee-help-

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