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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 03 Hansard (Wednesday, 10 March 2004) . . Page.. 1031 ..

A contribution level of $5,367 per annum has been set for mathematics and computing; other health science; agriculture and renewable resources; built environment and architecture; science, engineering and processing; and administration, business and economics courses. Again, the majority of these courses take three years to complete but some take four and five years. This means that by the completion of these courses, HECS-deferring students can be between $16,101 and $26,835 in debt.

The third level is $6,283 per annum for law; medicine and medical science; dentistry and dental services; and veterinary science. These courses take at least five years to complete, with some specialist medical courses stretching to six and seven years. So if we do the sums again, these students will find themselves in debt between $31,415 and $43,981 by the time they complete their degrees.

From 2005 all these fees could increase by 25 per cent under the federal government’s new higher education package. Under the new package, institutions will be able to increase HECS by up to 25 per cent on current rates. We have already seen since the announcement of the package several universities decide to increase fees the maximum 25 per cent.

Mr Speaker, it seems the days when everyone could access education regardless of his or her financial situation are long gone. The higher education report for the 2004 to 2006 triennium showed that students from poor families remain as unlikely to attend university as in the early 1990s. Students from financially disadvantaged homes make up 14.5 per cent of the university population, compared with 25 per cent of the general population. In 1991 the figure was similar at 14.7 per cent. A large reason for this is the difficulty many students have in obtaining government benefits such as youth allowance, Austudy and Abstudy, and the ridiculously low amounts students receive when they are eligible for these payments.

In 2003 only 171,430 university students were receiving Commonwealth assistance for living costs. That means the remaining 757,570 university students were reliant on their families, employment, or other forms of income to meet the costs of living while studying.

The three main government allowances available for students are youth allowance, Austudy and Abstudy. Abstudy is available for indigenous persons who are aged 14 years or more and studying part time or full time. How much assistance students receive is dependent on a number of factors, but the basic amount for a single independent student is $318.50 a fortnight.

Former president of the National Indigenous Postgraduate Association, Peter Randall, said many indigenous students were unable to study because of their financial situation and enrolments reflect this, with indigenous students making up only 1.6 per cent of all new higher education students in 2003. I am not so naive as to suggest that these are the only reasons why indigenous student numbers are at such a low level, but the financial imposition would certainly be a major reason why indigenous students are not taking up and not applying for courses.

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