A cluster foxtrot
How much students will pay and institutions receive by subject cluster for 2024 is still not known (but it’s a fair bet that the hated Job Ready Graduate 2023 rate of $15,000 for HASS, bus-eco and law students won’t be lower).
The DoE, states “it is working towards releasing the 2024 funding clusters and indexed rates and understands providers’ interest in next year’s clusters and rates.” Not much else to be said.
“Message from the government,” (yes, really)
The DoE advises it is “communicating” with 14,000 affected students “re delayed HELP loans that may not be visible on their ATO accounts.”
While detail is less sparse than non-existent, this appears to be about HE students whose loan records “were not properly transferred” to their Australian Tax Office accounts, In May the Department advise it was getting in touch with the students to tell them past annual indexation on their loans would be waived. DoE expected “resolved” loan records would be at the ATO by August (Campus Morning Mail May 19).
In which case the debt they knew not of will be a shock to a few, quite a few students. DoE now advises it has made phone contact with 1762 “highly impacted individuals and individuals at risk.” The rest are going to get the news, “via post, email and SMS,” and will undoubtedly believe a message from the government about their owing it money.
Their dough is done
The government has also dropped the Job Ready Graduate requirement for students to pass 50 per cent of subjects or lose Commonwealth funding for their place. This will apply on the first student census date after the legislation is through the Senate and has Royal assent (a couple of weeks). However students with low completion rates who paid up-front won’t get their money, or their place back.
