HECS

AdelaideNow... HECS has a high degee of fairess: PM:

"The figures show that more than 1000 finished their university studies owing more than $50,000, while 5190 students left uni with debts of more than $40,000."

HECS is disgusting. It's a terrible thing to do to young people to put them out into the world with a large debt...and this from people who benefitted from the free tuition available at the time. I know how much it costs. My daughter has just completed a second degree and I have lent her the money. Why? Because I can and because if she pays up front she saves 25% of the cost. So those who can least afford it are made to pay the extra 25%. I do not understand how students are leaving with debts of 40 or 50 thousand dollars. I should be interested to know how that has occurred. Obviously there needs to be some advice given to students. Not all of them actually understand how this HECS scheme works and that is inspite of being told. We really haven't communicated with some of the students and that needs to be addressed as does managing the debt. What also happens is students are forced to work part time jobs which take up too many hours to pay the HECS debt and when they are supposed to be studying. All that does is create a drag at the universtity level and I do not see how that is helping our standards. Truly, it all needs to be looked at and the rightness or wrongness of it ignored at this stage.