<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jun/21/university-of-melbourne-vice-chancellor-calls-for-free-university-education>
"The vice-chancellor of the University of Melbourne, Duncan Maskell, has joined
the Greens and student unions in calling for tertiary education to be free.
Speaking to students and staff on Tuesday evening, Maskell said it had become
“sadly fashionable” to assume students taking out loans to pay for university
was a “natural order of things”, rather than a policy decision.
University was free in Australia from 1974 until the introduction of the Higher
Education Contribution Scheme (Hecs) in 1989.
Maskell, who is currently the highest paid vice-chancellor in Australia, was a
beneficiary of the policy. He said it was “unequivocally true, coming from my
background, that if I had been required to take out a loan I would not have
gone to university”.
“I suspect that the prospective burden of significant debt is still a big
factor in people choosing not to go to university,” he said.
Since changes made under the Coalition’s job-ready graduates package, single
courses cost anywhere between $4,000 and $14,500.
After Labor won the 2022 federal election, the sector has been engaging in
policy discussions to inform the upcoming universities accord process, poised
to be the biggest reform to higher education since 2008. An interim report is
expected this month.
The chair of the Australian Universities Accord Panel, Mary O’Kane, has urged
the sector to be “big, bold and radical” in its submissions, while the
education minister, Jason Clare, says improving equitable access to higher
education is a key element of discussion in the accord.
“One of the most important radical changes that could be made to facilitate
this would be once more to make education free to the Australian domestic
student,” Maskell said."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
