By Sarah Stephens
The threat of full upfront fees for tertiary education has emerged as a national issue with the release in August of a discussion paper prepared by a joint working group of the Department of Employment, Education and Training (DEET) and the Higher Education Commission (HEC).
The paper, Resource Allocation in Higher Education, expressly rules out the option of increasing government funding for tertiary education. "There is little evidence to support the contention that there is a need for significant additional public investment to support the further expansion of Australia's higher education system at a national level". The paper claims that "unmet demand", or the lack of university places, cannot be directly equated with "under-supply" of places.
The DEET/HEC options, if implemented, will lead to increased class sizes, a decrease in the quality of education and the streamlining of courses to suit the needs of industry.
Option one proposes a mechanism to more easily redistribute funding between universities in response to demand. At present, university funds are usually fixed from the previous year and are relatively unresponsive to changes in demand. It is argued that a more flexible funding arrangement would allow those universities with the most demand to get the most funding.
However, the paper admits that there is one flaw with this proposal: there is no plan to increase overall funding. It concedes that the proposal could even lead to a reduction in overall places if "the amount of money being transferred from one university is used to fund fewer places at another university because the course at the donor university is more expensive".
Option two involves the use of existing resources to fund additional student places. This option advocates an extension of what the government has been implementing over the last ten years.
Funding per student has declined by 13% between 1983 and 1993, so that while the number of places available has been expanding, funding has not followed suit. The result is that university departments are being forced to employ cost-cutting mechanisms, introduce levies and fees and erode the quality of courses.
A central aspect of option two is the proposal that postgraduate subsidies be reduced to fund the growth of undergraduate places. This option, of upfront fees and direct industry funding for postgraduates, is already being put into action.
Option three looks at funding the growth in higher education by increasing private contributions, that is, student fees. This would include further changes to the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) and the wider introduction of upfront fees.
The proposed changes to HECS could include a variety of charges depending on the type of course undertaken. The example given is to make the HECS charge for law degrees higher than that for general arts degrees. Furthermore, there is a suggestion that HECS could be increased to a higher rate for those taking longer than the minimum time to complete their degree.
Australian undergraduates may soon be charged upfront fees. The fee-paying options could encourage instances where those with money, who missed out on a course placement, would be able to buy their way in. It seems likely that quotas will be tightened over time and that the proportion of fee-paying places will be increased to the point where those unable to afford fees will be forced to rely on scholarships, or miss out altogether.
The DEET/HEC paper also suggests that universities could be permitted to "charge a small fee (or premium) to all students, for example, between $500-$1000". A proportion of this could be kept by the university, with the remainder being returned to the government. Whether or not this money would be channelled back into higher education is unknown.
The paper recognises that there must be "access to subsidised loans and/or scholarships to fee-paying undergraduate students, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds". But the direction of the paper is to encourage individual students to pay for their university education. According to the paper's authors, in the 1990s free education is no longer "viable".
These proposals follow the trajectory pushed by the federal Labor government since 1986 when they introduced the $250 administration charge. Student opposition then forced the Labor government to introduce its less-favoured HECS option. The inadequacies of HECS in meeting government and business plans to cut public spending has forced the issue of upfront fees back onto the agenda.
The attempt, at the Australian National University, to introduce upfront fees for the professional component of the law degree is being seen by many students as a "litmus test". Both the government and the university administration want to gauge their chances of introducing upfront fees without provoking mass student opposition as happened in the late 1980s.
If enough students can be mobilised to defeat the proposal for upfront fees, the government will be forced to reconsider its plans. If we fail to defeat the introduction of fees at ANU it will give the green light to other universities to charge similarly. It will also be a signal to the Labor government to push ahead with its plans to reduce access to tertiary education.
The campaign at ANU began after the University's Resources Committee recommended that fees of up to $12,000 be charged for the legal workshop. The resultant widespread anger and opposition has spread beyond the law school as other students began to realise the ramifications of this decision. It is clear that the campaign has to focus beyond the law faculty in order to win.
Since the recommendation was made public, students have organised a series of demonstrations including a 400-strong demonstration on August 5 and a 300-strong meeting on the law school lawns on August 9 which voted to strike the next day. The entire law school closed down for the day as students set up picket lines outside lectures.
A loud and angry demonstration of 200 students gathered outside a law faculty meeting on August 12. Students condemned upfront fees, but agreed that if a fee was "absolutely necessary", it be reduced to $3500 with no more than $1000 to be paid upfront and the remainder to be paid back during the year. They also called for an adequate loans scheme to be put into place. These alternatives will have to be taken into consideration at a meeting of University Council on September 9 at which a final decision on the fee is due to be made.
On August 16, the Resources Committee released a statement approving the introduction of upfront fees for postgraduate courses beginning at $4000 from 1995. This has made it quite clear that, far from being an isolated case, the fee proposal for the legal workshop is the thin edge of the wedge.
A general student meeting has been called by the Students Association for August 23. This meeting will have to decide where the campaign needs to go from here in order to defeat the fees proposal. It is important to broaden the campaign and increase the number of students involved, and this means highlighting the connection between postgraduate and undergraduate fees and arguing other campuses to get involved and help spread the campaign in anticipation of Labor's implementation of the recommendations in the DEET/HEC paper.
Actions are likely to focus around September 9, the date the Council will make its final decision on the upfront fee. For more information ring 247 24 24.