Jason Clare was on the ABC talking about childcare the other day, when he was asked what he will do about Job Ready Graduates (JRG) costs for humanities courses. He turned up the smoke and focused the mirrors.
Mr Clare said the system had failed before talking about implementing equity aspects of the Accord. He mentioned his Bill before parliament “so more kids get a crack at uni, in particular kids from poor families and from the regions and the bush.”
As to how much students pay, he had two responses, neither about JRG. The Minister mentioned last year’s 20% cut to the total national study debt and how credit for TAFE study can cut a year off a degree.
But, and it is a distant but, the Minister expects advice from ATEC on “the pricing of university degrees” in the second half of ’27. “It is going to take a while. Like, it’s expensive, right, and it’s complicated. But I have said it’s unfinished business, there’s more work to do.”
Maybe the Minister means changing JRG will be part of ATEC’s price model for Commonwealth Supported Places, which will take a while go get going. So, at the earliest it will go at the start of ’28; and pushed into ’29 if universities convince the Government to consider the efficient prices prescribed for teaching all sorts of UG courses.
The HASS community and university lobbies are outraged, but Greens and Teals aside, there is no political constituency for ending JRG. Government and Opposition Senators just voted in committee to kill Mehreen Faruqi’s proposed Bill to end $50,000 degree for bized, law, and humanities students, with no real uproar outside interest groups.
There is more interest in Monique Ryan’s proposal to change the HECs debt calculation date from June to November, thus reducing the principal everybody owes by their payments in the previous financial year.
Of course, it could be done faster if there was a political imperative. The HELP cut was pre-election politics, not policy. The same with still-in-place cuts to onshore international enrolments.
But there isn’t one.