University fees skyrocket
Article from: The Mercury
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MERYL NAIDOO
July 25, 2008 12:00am
TASMANIAN university fees will soar by 25 per cent next year.
The increases mean some students will pay more than $8000 extra for their degrees.
The rises have sparked concerns people will be deterred from enrolling at the University of Tasmania.
UTAS announced its plans yesterday to raise Higher Education Contribution Scheme fees, saying it needed to remain fiscally responsible and maintain its standards of excellence.
Students starting a medical degree next year will now pay $40,840 for a Bachelor of Medicine – up $8165 from this year.
Those going on to engineering, science and accounting will have to pay $6978 under the new HECS fees, compared with this year's $5583.
The annual cost of a three-year arts degree will rise from $3920 to $4900.
Vice-Chancellor Daryl Le Grew said UTAS had no option other than increasing fees because government funding had not risen, but he understood the increase was a blow to students.
Some of the extra income would be dedicated to scholarships.
"The university has always offered high-quality and value-for-money degrees and we have to do this to maintain excellence," he said.
Students and academics argue the increases will deter students from enrolling.
Tasmanian University Union president Robert Meredith expects the fee rise will cut enrolments.
"Someone who is unemployed and on the dole gets better money than a student full-time on Youth Allowance," he said.
"A 25 per cent HECS increase is going to translate to thousands of dollars over the course of a degree so it is another disincentive for further studies when you could get paid to learn a trade and move straight into the workforce."
With UTAS being the state's only university, he said Tasmania had low retention rates for both secondary and further education, coupled with one of the highest levels of low socio-economic secondary students in the country, suggesting any alternative would have been better.
The fees go to the university but not necessarily return as an increase to the quality of education, Mr Meredith said.
But Prof Le Grew said the university was committed to allocating a major proportion of the extra funds to scholarships, teaching and learning.
The University of Tasmania had previously been the only one in Australia not to increase HECS fees by the 25 per cent allowed under education reforms by the former Howard government.
"Research from other universities with similar fees found enrolments remained fairly unchanged in other capital cities," Prof Le Grew said.
He said holding fees to the lowest possible level, when others increased theirs almost immediately years ago, was a deliberate policy of UTAS to encourage enrolments.
He said enrolments had grown substantially in recent years. |
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