With university tuition costs increasing, every student in Australia now has to contend with the cost of earning a degree. Luke Sheehy, the chief executive of Universities Australia, has sounded the alarm. He cautions that there are more job cuts to come in the higher education sector. The projected cost of a three-year arts degree is expected to reach $53,400 by 2028, adjusted for inflation, a reality that places significant pressure on prospective students like Tori Henderson.
Henderson is a Year 12 student from Nowra, a small city on the New South Wales south coast. He’s planning to apply to study an arts degree next year. She embodies a generation that is confronting enormous economic challenges as they pursue the next chapter in their lives. The changes introduced during the Morrison era, known as Job Ready Graduates (JRG), have altered funding structures, raising some degree costs while lowering others. According to Sheehy, this recession has made universities historically $1 billion per year worse off.
“The longer Job Ready Graduates stays in place, the longer our system will start to suffer,” said Sheehy, emphasizing the urgent need for reform in the higher education landscape. Immediate action is essential if we hope to save the thousands of jobs now threatened across the industry’s sector. Without it, we double down on a precarious position for institutions and students alike.
Students Weigh Their Options
For many high school seniors like Tori Henderson, the decision to pursue higher education involves weighing the potential benefits against the financial burdens. Henderson now has an opportunity to be among the first in her family to go to college. It’s the increasing debt that accompanies that choice that has her worried.
“It’s devastating. That is more than a house deposit nowadays. It’s actually quite disheartening,” she expressed regarding the financial implications of pursuing a degree in arts. Henderson’s concerns are a microcosm of fears felt by her counterparts who have come to grips with the economic realities in which they live and work.
She articulated her struggle: “You need a roof over your head, you need a car to get around, and at the end of the day, is your education worth more than your stability in the future? It’s a hard thing to weigh up.” This dilemma makes clear the most pivotal moment for students as they weigh their options and face ever-increasing expenses.
You can’t put nearly a billion dollars of financial pressure on a system each and every year without having this materialise with job cuts, with courses reduced,” Sheehy cautioned. It’s a lack of investment that has deadly real-world impacts. Students will have fewer options as schools continue to be squeezed on financial resources.
Long-Term Implications of Debt
The debt load that goes along with pursuing higher education is considerable, especially for students with degrees in the humanities. High school seniors need to know that going into one of these programs can incur debts upwards of $55,000. This new, shocking number is a cause for alarm for millions of working families. Andrew Norton, an expert on higher education policy, expressed concern for arts graduates:
I’m particularly concerned for arts graduates. Their income is never enough to let them repay their debts in full, and they are thus faced with a HELP debt following them their whole professional lives.
The implications of this reality are profound. Does studying specific fields of study lead to high economic payoffs over a lifetime? As graduates struggle with student loan repayments, their ability to invest in homes or start families may be severely hindered.
“That’s money that they can’t use to buy a house and start a family or whatever is happening in those years,” noted Peter Hurley, highlighting the broader societal implications of student debt.
Calls for Urgent Reform
Given these pressures, Universities Australia has recently made a plea for more haste in fixing the current underfunded and outdated educational funding system. Sheehy stressed the importance of strong guidance and resources for universities. Without them, they will be at an increasing disadvantage, to the detriment of their students and faculty.
With inadequate funding, we’re looking at each and every course and whether or not it’s still viable, and that impacts student choice,” he stated. His comments reflect a growing consensus among educators and policymakers that immediate reform is essential to ensure accessibility and sustainability within higher education.
Henderson echoed these sentiments by advocating for equal opportunities in education: “Everyone should have the same chance to a degree that they want to do, a job that they want to do at the end of the day, and it’s just unfair.”
Students have been really thrown into the deep end. They need to face the reality of their dreams, but the fiscal reality of their educational decisions. The future remains uncertain, but one thing is clear: urgent action is necessary to address the systemic issues plaguing Australia’s higher education landscape.
