Paying for your child/partner's HECS fees

[basilio]

Anyone else seen this particular proposal being examined by the Turnball government? Essentially they are looking at making HECS fees repayments mean tested on the whole households income.

SO if your son/daughter is still staying at home because they can't get a job the government can decide that your income is sufficiently high enough to start paying back the HECS fees.

Cool ? Check it out. Interested in thoughts.

There's a really shocking plan for when you have to repay HECS debts hidden in the Budget
Harry Tucker
May 4, 2016, 6:09 AM


University fees for popular courses are set to rise dramatically with the Turnbull government proposing partial deregulation, dubbed “alternative model flexibility”.

Universities will be able to set their own fees for several courses, but would lose out on government public funding as a result. Treasurer Scott Morrison is also still hoping to bank $1.4 billion in cuts from 2018-2012, nearly $2 billion less than what was originally proposed in Joe Hockey’s 2014 budget. Those original changes are yet to be passed by the Senate, and the amended cuts will go to parliament over the next 12 months.

It’s expected that many universities will make the changes to the cost of Arts degrees. However, any increases won’t add to the bottom line for the campus, instead saving the government money as it withdraws funds.

The Budget Papers state that “this measure is estimated to achieve savings of $2.0 billion over five years from 2015-16 in fiscal balance terms and cost $596.7 million over five years from 2015-16 in underlying cash balance terms.”

But the real sting for students saddled with HECS debt is that the 2016 federal budget is proposing a “household means test” on the repayment threshold. Currently graduates don’t start repaying their debt until they earn more than $54,126.

The changes will take into account of household incomes, which includes defacto partners and the parents of graduates still living at home. That means how much your long-term boyfriend/girlfriend, or mum and dad make will determine when you having to stay paying back student loans.

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/t...-repay-hecs-debts-hidden-in-the-budget-2016-5

 

[Knobby22]

That will encorage the parents to kick out the grown up kids.

 

[Gringotts Bank]

I don't have a comment on that specifically, but if education gets any more expensive it will become very exclusive. Actually it already is pretty exclusive. High fees create graduates who feel entitled to receive high wages the moment they finish. Of course it's rarely the reality. So much of what is taught at universities is absolute crap; useless in the real world. This is because many academics live in their heads. They create curricula with the sole objective of stretching out months-long courses into many years.

At some point soon, I predict an 'Uber education' system will emerge. A sort of cheap and unregulated alternative DIY, where you get everything that the top unis deliver, except the prestige. Governments will approve it - they will have to. Whether anyone from big business will hire you is another matter. Paying high fees is reasonable proof that you're offspring of wealthy parents, and everyone is aware of the predictive value of this. The apple rarely falls far from the tree, as the saying goes.

See: https://futurestudents.unimelb.edu....g-students_TuitionFeeTables_29January2016.pdf