What relevance do these OS systems have to our HECS system exactly?

Quote:

Originally Posted by big eddie

What relevance do these OS systems have to our HECS system exactly?

Highlighting its superiority?

I got a letter in my last hecs statement (about 2-3 weeks ago) saying they were decreasing the voluntary up front payment discount from 10% to 5% and something else but i forget what, anyone know why?

It's from 20% to 10%… You can thank your mate Julia for that. Thank fuck I'll have completed my degree by the time this comes into force.

Dont really understand this government, its been a constant series of give with one hand and take with the other.
Yea, sorry, my bad, i knew it was halved, but never good with specific values. Right you are
Thinking about doing a second degree starting next year... Eep.
Any idea why this discount has been decreased?

Imho the workforce is already saturated
with people who have a degree (in something), the amount of people at
work with a degree or masters, doomed to a life of checkout chickage is astounding!

What is the point of having an excess of overskilled people working menial jobs, in most cases the people i work with will
never even make enough to
repay their hecs.
Hell, most of the people from my year who are graduated dont even have or cannot find a job, only 2 of the 12 grads have full time jobs, the rest temp or work in retail/sales etc.
Whats the point exactly?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fewsion

Isn't it the case in Sweden that you don't pay for a Uni degree if you complete the studies. So the incentive is to not drop out for the student, and the incentive is for the government to have a more skilled workforce that they can take more tax from to fund their welfare state. Could work here.

Except that we have a skills shortage in the trades and don't need anyone else with a useless arts degree. If you make people pay for something, they are more likely to value it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by smorchika

I got a letter in my last hecs statement (about 2-3 weeks ago) saying they were decreasing the voluntary up front payment discount from 10% to 5% and something else but i forget what, anyone know why?

The treasury told them it would save a ridiculous amount of money. I can't find any articles on it but I remember hearing about it when it happened.

Personally, I think it's fair enough.

I think the reasoning behind this is that someone who is considering paying up front is not going to suddenly not pay up front if the discount goes down from 20% to 10%. 10% discount is still a lot of money.

While on the other hand, people who cant afford to pay up front have to pay the full amount.

I think it is pretty reasonable.

I think it's unlikely to really save that much money. If your discount went from 10% to 5% I reckon way fewer people would pay upfront. Given that if the Government has the money sooner they can be paying of debt with it, and that if people don't pay up front some will never pay all of it, and a few won't pay any of it, I can't see that they'll really come out ahead.

But I don't really know what I'm talking about.

Edit: If it's dropping from 20-10% I think that's even more of a disincentive to pay up front.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oblivia

I think it's unlikely to really save that much money. If your discount went from 10% to 5% I reckon way fewer people would pay upfront. Given that if the Government has the money sooner they can be paying of debt with it, and that if people don't pay up front some will never pay all of it, and a few won't pay any of it, I can't see that they'll really come out ahead.

But I don't really know what I'm talking about.

Edit: If it's dropping from 20-10% I think that's even more of a disincentive to pay up front.

The difference is the majority of people paying it 'upfront' aren't actually paying it themselves, it is their parents who are just 'paying their children's hecs' the discount is not the main motivating factor. So the people with the means to do that, will continue to do that and the government gets more $.

exactly

You may be right. The only one person I knew who paid their hecs upfront did it themselves for the discount, working their ass off at a retail job. They are not really a statistically significant sample size though.

There is no way that 20% discount is worth the effort it takes to get via $$ from a retail job........

Quote:

Originally Posted by smorchika

Dont really understand this government, its been a constant series of give with one hand and take with the other.
Yea, sorry, my bad, i knew it was halved, but never good with specific values. Right you are
Thinking about doing a second degree starting next year... Eep.
Any idea why this discount has been decreased?

As previously stated I think you'll find the vast majority of those paying upfront will not actually be paying it themselves. In essence, this targets those well off enough to pay upfront and is irrelevant to 95% of students.

To be perfectly honest, it doesn't really make much economic sense to pay upfront in any case, given how the HECS loan is repaid. If you had the money, you would probably be financially better off sticking it a term deposit or whatnot.

It's a non-issue.

Quote:

Originally Posted by smorchika

Imho the workforce is already saturated with people who have a degree (in something), the amount of people at work with a degree or masters, doomed to a life of checkout chickage is astounding!

What is the point of having an excess of overskilled people working menial jobs. Hell, most of the people from my year who are graduated dont even have or cannot find a job, only 2 of the 12 grads have full time jobs, the rest temp or work in retail/sales etc.

Whats the point exactly?

The government wants people to study after finishing the HSC to keep the official unemployment number artificially low.

"Australian universities in a bubble"

http://www.smh.com.au/small-business...721-1hppi.html

Quote:

Originally Posted by big eddie

Australian kids are too lazy to do their own assignments, let alone their friends.

Wikipedia did my degree for me

Quote:

Originally Posted by big eddie

The live at home forever thing is a very recent, very Sydney phenomenon.

Beans on toast? Luxury, proper broke is rice + chili sauce.

Was rice with lemon juice for me, liked the taste for some reason. On special occasions I mixed a can of spam through the rice. Luckily goon bags are always cheap. Heading back for some post grad studies so may have to do this again.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sydney3000

"Australian universities in a bubble"

http://www.smh.com.au/small-business...721-1hppi.html

The article looks like he did some business or commerce degree? IMO these are too popular now and don't teach you how to think. Most of my mates with commerce degrees have gone back for further study as they couldn't find good jobs, and the jobs they did find were traineeships...even with degrees.

In regards to thread topic I think in general our system is reasonable and dont mind racking up a HECS/HELP whatever debt as the repayment scheme seems fair to me. Would have loved free uni like my parents but I don't think our system, plus access to centrelink is terrible.

There's no way I could pay for my degree upfront - $1500 per subject (4 subjects a semester, 2 semesters a year) - $12,000 per year. That's before rent, food, etc!

Very grateful for HECS. I don't mind paying eventually (rather than a free education). It's much better than most countries have it

You do realise that if HECS was abolished the cost to you would only be $150 per subject (4 subjects a semester, 2 semesters a year) - $1,200 per year. HECS increases the cost of tertiary education by a factor of ten. Selling anything on credit increases the cost of the good or service by a factor of ten.

are you trying to say that if hecs was abolished the government would cover more of the cost of tertiary learning?

get.off.the.crack.

Quote:

Originally Posted by big eddie

The difference is the majority of people paying it 'upfront' aren't actually paying it themselves, it is their parents who are just 'paying their children's hecs' the discount is not the main motivating factor. So the people with the means to do that, will continue to do that and the government gets more $.

i was considering dropping some extra $ off my hecs but now that it's only 5% discount i won't bother.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DSILVR

It's from 20% to 10%… You can thank your mate Julia for that. Thank fuck I'll have completed my degree by the time this comes into force.

actually both of you were right... sort of

the 20% to 10% thing is a discount on the fees if you pay upfront, not the hecs. you don't incur hecs if you pay your fees.

there also was a 10% discount if you made voluntary repayments of your hecs, that has now been reduced to 5%

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bracko

are you trying to say that if hecs was abolished the government would cover more of the cost of tertiary learning?

If HECS was abolished few potential students would have the cash to pay $1,500 per subject. The demand-supply scenario would readjust to the point where potential students could pay for the education in cash to which they have access to. After minimum living costs potential students have a disposable wealth that could fund payment of tertiary education at $150 per subject. Therefore if HECS was abolished subject costs would fall to $150 because that is the cash-only price for tertiary education.

Would you rather pay $150 per subject now or $1,500 per subject in the future?

Does anybody know what the cost per subject was before HECS was implemented? I wouldn't be surprised if it was $150 per subject or less.

that is complete bullshit

if your ridiculous idea ever came to fruition you would just see private sector provide student loans instead of the government. most likely resulting in an increased cost rather than your idea.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gussigan

if your ridiculous idea ever came to fruition you would just see private sector provide student loans instead of the government. most likely resulting in an increased cost rather than your idea.

I love what you posted. As soon as there is any chance for a good or service to drop in price a public or private player will step in and make sure that that never occurs. Education is too affordable so let's give them loans to increase the cost of education. Cars are too affordable so let's give them loans to increase the cost of cars. Property is too affordable so let's give them loans to increase the cost of property. Affordability is not part of the design of the debt slavery system.

"There’s an education bubble, which is, like the others, psychosocial. There’s a wide public buy-in that leads to a product being overvalued because it’s linked to future expectations that are unrealistic. Education is similar to the tech bubble of the late 1990s, which assumed crazy growth in businesses that didn’t pan out. The education bubble is predicated on the idea that the education provided is incredibly valuable. In many cases that’s just not true."

"There is something like $1 trillion in student debt. A cynical view is that that represents $1 trillion worth of lies told about the value of higher education. There are incredible incentives to exaggerate its value, and the counter-narrative has been shaky but is coming to the fore. Bubbles end when people stop believing the false narrative and start thinking for themselves. So many students are not getting the jobs they need to repay their debts, are moving back in with their parents, and the contract both parties signed up for is being revealed as false."

http://www.the-american-interest.com...cfm?piece=1187

Thanks for outlining the issues with a system that has a number of key differences to our own!

"We're burying our country's future under a mountain of debt."

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/...-loans/254928/

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/did-jp...nt-loan-bubble

Exactly how are these links in any way relevant to the Australian HECS system?

"The situation has parallels to the mortgage crisis of a few years ago, said Barmak Nassirian. The colleges are like the subprime lenders, he said."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/bu...eavy-debt.html

sydney3000 is on a mission to inform all internet peoplez of the evil that is hecs, superannuation and Australia's property market.

Don't know about the $1trillion quoted above for US student loan debt, but here...

Quote:

For the 2009-10 income year...total higher education loan debt increased to $19.9 billion

source: www.ato.gov.au

http://www.defaultmovie.com/

"The debt will follow them the rest of their lives."

http://www.villagevoice.com/2012-08-...-Colleges-con/

Funny story actually, my accountant utterly failed to declare my HECS on my 08 tax return, which has now been audited. Hence brand new 5K tax bill, but on the plus side that's knocked off over 1/5 of my total debt.

Cool story Hansel.

Although it kind of puts the lesser magnitude of HECS in perspective.

I'm actually paying down my HECS debt at a decent rate these days. should be gone in 3-4 years.

I guess 52k a year is now considered 'rich rollin'

:richrollin:

"At this juncture... the impact on the broader economy and financial markets of the problems in the subprime markets seems likely to be contained" - Ben Bernanke, March 28, 2007

“I don’t think student loans are a financial stability issue to the same extent that, say, mortgage debt was in the last crisis because most of it is held not by financial institutions but by the federal government” - Ben Bernanke, August 8, 2012

I personally like the HECS system.
I got a very good tertiary education and I am happy to pay for that. The most economically productive way for that to happen and to make me contribute value to society was the government providing an interest free loan - ie hecs.

I suspect the hecs system might actually be keeping the cost of education down if you compare here to the US. The Aus government caps the amount they funnel into degrees, meaning universities can't simply charge whatever they like to the bulk of their students.
Without that however, they are free to charge more and more because the students want the degrees and will take up more private debt to get it.
That might be one explanation of the lower tuition fees charged here.

I would say that some degrees have a bit of trouble, especially in specialised degrees where student intakes are increasing and high school graduates have no idea what the job situation is like.
There are many more law students than there are lawyers. As a result, less than 50% of graduates will end up practicing.
There are now more medical graduates (even in NSW) than there are training places. Preference is given to domestics, so there will be more and more internationals who spend years and tens of thousands learning medicine to find that there are absolutely no training opportunities.

I like that this graph probably has absolutely nothing to do with the Australian student load system.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sydney3000

Does anybody know what the cost per subject was before HECS was implemented? I wouldn't be surprised if it was $150 per subject or less.

It was free.

You're an idiot.

I love random graphs posted with out context or explanation.

Lets me draw my own conclusions.

And the conclusion I'm going to draw is that a) America is probably pretty fucked and b) we're alright.

There's also c) which includes my thoughts on Sydney 3000, but as I've been infracted for similar ones in the past, I'll avoid outlining them specifically here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by YossarianIsSane

UWA is moving to this next year as well. It's not as big a change as it is made out to be. Straight science and arts degrees will not change at all. Engineering and law are the ones most affected, and even then the units and length are almost identical.

The hidden MASSIVE catch is that once you tick over into the 'graduate' part of the qualification, you are subject to all the fun things that entails: full fees, not eligible for most Centrelink, no concession card, etc. Whatever the pedagogical reasons put forward for the redesign, it was a cynical grab for full-fees for qualifications that used to be undergrad. (I was on various Unimelb committees when this went down. The student unions screamed blue murder, but it was conveniently papered over.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by big eddie

What relevance do these OS systems have to our HECS system exactly?

Essentially nil. What no-one ever mentions about the US student loan system is how much of the loans are not tuition (probably because no-one actually knows). It is almost universal to get student loans for living expenses. In fact, most universities require you to live on-campus for your freshman (first) year, so that's already a massive chunk of cash, then you get a living allowance thereafter!

Not that this has anything to do with anything, but it's certainly been interesting to me to learn more about the context while I've been working in universities in the US:

There are various things you can do to keep down US college debt. The main one is to go to a state university for which you are considered 'in-state': you or your parents have lived in the specific state for a set period of time (it varies). Other big ones are financial aid (if your family's income is low); doing two years at a community college (cheap) then only needing two years at a university (not cheap); and, student athletes usually get at least partial fee remission. There are plenty of others (I can send family members to my university for 'free'), so it's possible to accumulate pretty hefty savings. The people with the crippling student debt have usually gone to a private or out-of-state school and taken the largest available loan for living expenses. Sometimes it's 'unavoidable' if you need to live somewhere like NYC, but did you really 'need' to go to that school in the first place...?

It's got a lot to do with the American idea of 'needing' the 'best', even if you'd be just fine with the cheaper, more practical version. There are plenty of Americans making do with what they can: living at home, going to their local community college/state school, etc. Mind, this is not considered to be the good, 'middle class' thing to do (here, everyone wants to be 'middle class' - the only thing below that is 'poor'). I look at it as aspirational debt: "I want to be the person who can afford this". I'm still well and truly Australian enough to say fuck that fucking shit!

Even considered in context, I find the US wailing and gnashing of teeth a bit rich. Furthermore, it is a complete waste of time to apply any of the US rhetoric to the Australian higher education loan system. The actual issue the countries have in common is the problem of qualification inflation (ie. needing a Bachelors for pretty much any job, even if it's not worth the paper it's printed on *cough*business degree*cough*). This is a massive problem and as one of the people who is supposed to be educating the next generation, I wish the people who 'just need a degree' weren't in my classes! Just get a job, instead of pissing about and dragging everyone else down. I was thinking the other day about how many of my students I would be willing to hire if I were an employer. I have a couple of great classes, but the others I would have happily fired within a fortnight (which is no doubt what will happen to them).

Ironically, it's the US that actually has jobs for me, in part because of this mentality. (There are also major differences to the federal research funding structure, so it's not all about consumer demand.)

/rant

Quote:

Originally Posted by m_xt

On special occasions I mixed a can of spam through the rice.

I read spam as sperm

Sticky rice indeed

HECS is rubbish. The majority of current politicians attained their education free of charge. There was never a need for the people to pay for their additional education. It's only because education has now become a major business instead of what it's actually meant to be which is actually teach people, not have Deans driving around in custom built Lamborghini and Ferrari rides, picking up eighteen year old chicks from gold coast nightclubs.

Plus lets not also forget that Rudd and the labor party also further screwed everyone up by moving HECS up with inflation. So if the inflation rate is 3% then your HECS amount goes up by 3%. Already there are so many people who will be unable to pay their HECS debt and what a brilliant decision to increase an un-payable debt even more, well played Rudd, well played - NOT.

The Universities keep putting their course prices up without any justification what so ever, it's an utter disgrace so in years to come the situation is only going to get worse and worse. I mean lets look at England and when they tried to increase course fees, people went nuts and even smashed up one of the royal cars with Charles in it. Here - nothing.