UWA to hike fees 30 per cent if deregulation gets green light

Updated

The University of Western Australia has revealed that fees will jump by 30 per cent under a Federal Government plan to deregulate higher education.

It is the first tertiary institution in Australia to reveal its fee structure under deregulation.

The university said it would charge a flat fee of $16,000 a year for full-time domestic students enrolled in one of the institute's five undergraduate courses from 2016.

That is at least 30 per cent more than current charges.

Students studying medicine are facing fees of more than $100,000 for their full degree.

Budget measures for Higher Education Reduce repayment threshold for HELP (Higher Education Loan Program) debts from an annual wage of $51,309 to $50,638 from July 1 2016; increase interest rates on the loans to the Government bond rate which is capped at 6 per cent. These two measures will save $3.2 billion over four years from 2014-15.

Deregulate fees to allow universities, TAFEs and colleges to charge market-driven rates for courses. This will save $1.1 billion over three years from 2015-16, representing a 20 per cut in federal government funding for course fees.

Commonwealth scholarships for disadvantaged students will be funded by contributions from higher education providers, who will be required to contribute $1 out of every $5 raised through fee increases.

Remove the 25 per cent loan fee on FEE-HELP loans, which are available for domestic fee-paying students whose places are not subsidised by the Government.

Cut $173.7m funding over three years to the Research Training Scheme, allowing universities to charge doctoral students to cover the gap.

But UWA said it still gave students the opportunity to obtain a three-year degree for less than $50,000.

In a submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Education and Employment, the university said it had decided to take the initiative to end widespread speculation about fees.

Deputy vice-chancellor (Education) Professor Alec Cameron said the announcement aimed to provide clarity for students.

"The university feels compelled to announce its fees proposal at the earliest opportunity to provide greater certainty to current and prospective students about its pricing plans in a deregulated market," Professor Cameron said.

"However, this fee pricing strategy would need to be reconsidered should the Senate make amendments to the bill."

He said the fee scheme was justified because UWA graduates were highly employable.

"UWA graduates consistently rank as the most employable in Western Australia, regardless of which course they study," he said.

"In our view this justifies a common pricing approach."

The Government plans to deregulate fees for higher education from 2016 and will also increase interest charges for student loans.

Education policy expert Professor Peter Noonan, from the Mitchell Institute for Health and Education Policy at Victoria University, said the UWA fees were in line with expectation.

"It certainly will be a benchmark in Western Australia," he told 774 ABC Melbourne.

He said charging more than $100,000 for a medical degree was illustrative of the problems of the current deregulation package.

"I think it illustrates a problem with the package as its currently designed because medicine is limited in terms of the number of universities that can offer it, and the student numbers and the internships are also very limited," he said.

"So it's not a monopoly but it's very close to a closed market, which means that the providers can charge very high fees because they're not really facing genuine competition."

He said it also raised the question of whether prestigious universities charging top fees should be allowed to keep the same public subsidies as other universities.

Federal Education Minister Christopher Pyne said the fee announcement proved students had been "profoundly misled by Labor, the NTEU and the Greens in reckless scaremongering about universities fees".

"Labor and the NTEU claim university fees will increase to more than $32,000 a year," he said in a statement.

"The University of Western Australia has set fees at half of that figure, exposing Labor’s shameless scare campaign."

He said students would not have to pay the fees upfront but would only repay them when they earned more than $50,000 per year.

Topics: university-and-further-education, government-and-politics, university-of-western-australia-6009

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