Pay as you learn? We can't afford it!
By Marina Cameron
Students and university staff around the country will rally on May 8 in a show of anger at federal government policy on education. What theyre rallying against is the introduction of a privatised system in which education is simply another commodity, like soap powder, and in which those without the ability to pay exorbitant fees for it may not get any chance at entering university.
Taking up where Labor left off, the Coalition plans to introduce a university system in which a large proportion of students pay full fees for their courses (up to $100,000 for degrees such as dentistry). Universities will run more and more like private profit-making businesses pure and simple, and the content of education will be tailored specifically and solely to the interests and needs of the big corporations.
At its most basic level, what is under attack is the concept that everyone has a right to education, regardless of background, income, gender or any other factor.
The first steps have already been taken — but now the attacks are coming thick and fast.
Last year the government cut $2.3 billion from higher education in the budget, federal supplementation of staff pay rises was refused, and major cuts to Austudy were put in place.
This year, the government has given free rein to individual university administrations, which are all too willing and enthusiastic to carry out the governments dirty work. Each university has turned its attention to cutting courses, campuses, staff, libraries and student services, alongside introducing further up-front fees and ancillary charges to fill their coffers.
Even more attacks are likely when the West review into higher education reports next year. Given a brief to recommend wide-ranging changes to higher education, and stacked with business figures, the West reviews aim is to provide an ideological justification for the Liberals privatisation plans.
It is unlikely that the government will bring in another round of cuts to education as big as last years in the federal budget on May 13; it will want to let anger over last years cuts subside a little. The push towards privatisation is going to continue in other forms and even accelerate, however.
We know that there are two priority areas for attacks.
The first is student income support, which is still a large percentage of the education budget. The government aims to cut $500 million off Austudy over the next four years by tightening means testing and restricting access, eventually affecting 160,000 students.
One attack which was expected in the May budget was the common youth allowance. However, the government announced on April 20 that instead of introducing the allowance formally, changes to youth income support will be considered outside the budget process over the next few months, and possibly be introduced next year. Whatever the form the cuts come in, the substance (i.e. cuts to Austudy and the youth dole) will remain.
The second major area of future attack is undergraduate fees. More and more, introducing fees will become the main game in privatising education.
Its argued that allowing 25% on top of the quota of government/HECS-funded quota places at any institution is OK, as long as overall place numbers are maintained. But once the undergraduate fees market is opened up, universities will do anything they can to attract fee-paying students — it wont stop at 25%, even in spite of "set in stone" government guarantees.
Fees will mean universities catering entirely to fee-paying students in courses, services, places and anything else that makes them "competitive".
Monash University has already decided to cop the government fine for under-enrolling HECS students to allow it to admit more full fee-paying students. Deakin University is going to allow fee-paying students who do well in first year to take the positions of HECS classmates who fail. And other universities are busy looking at similar get-rich-quick schemes to sting students.
The larger, elite universities and those which offer specialised training are much more able to take advantage of the fees market opening up. This competition will further divide universities into two tiers: the "sandstone" and technology universities (such as Melbourne, Sydney, RMIT, Curtin) geared to wealthier students whose families can afford the massive fees; and the small, regional and less prestigious universities, catering for those whose families cant.
The next most talked-about step in pushing privatisation is a voucher system, in which the focus of government funding moves away from providing operating grants to universities, towards "supporting" students in purchasing vouchers which they spend at the public or private university of their choice. This would increase competition and widen the gaps between the rich and poor universities and rich and poor students.
A voucher system has been proposed repeatedly by the Liberals and was their policy in 1993. It has been pushed hard within the West review into higher education by the universities of Sydney, NSW and WA and the two private universities, Bond and Notre Dame.
ALP frontbencher Peter Baldwin and shadow education minister Mark Latham announced on April 24 that they are pushing for the Labor Party to adopt as policy a similar system. Students would get an initial grant or loan to go into a "learning account", which they spend at institutions of their choice. This account would be held on a "smart card" which people would be encouraged to top up throughout their lives with individual savings and accumulated superannuation.
Resistance national coordinator, Sean Healy told Green Left, "The Liberals are clearly pushing privatisation, and the Labor Party is putting forward no alternative, except that it would implement it slightly differently. The VCs in general have accepted the argument of needing to structure universities like corporations, competing on a domestic and international level, and to charge students more. The VCs have elected to be realistic and simply argue for more scholarships, while accepting fees.
"If we dont reject the idea of privatisation and user-pays completely, then we are just left quibbling about how fast education goes down the privatisation road. It is in the interests of students, university staff and the general community to fight for an education which is free.
"Thats what the May 8 demonstrations are all about."