Jason Clare is testing lines for the imminent argument over abolishing the Job Ready Graduates fee setting policy – which don’t involve getting rid of the almost universally-panned policy.
The Education Minister used to deflect questions about ending JRG by saying the student fee scheme would be a matter for ATEC. As he said in Question Time in September 2024, ATEC will “steer reform … which includes the setting of course fees.”
Perhaps he meant the government contribution alone, but that explanation won’t work for long, what with the establishing legislation set to pass. And while ATEC as about to be legislated will not consider student shares of course charges the (Interim) Commission is already is looking at what degrees cost to teach.
When published, this will give critics evidence to argue for the umpteenth time that humanities undergraduates should not be slugged for $50,000 degrees and demand Mr Clare stop it.
And so assuming Treasury will not stump up the $650m to abolished the top cost tier of JRG, without increasing other classes of degree fees, Mr Clare needs a diversion. And he needs it fast; the Greens have a bill to abolish the funding model, which is now with a Senate committee, due to report at the end of June. That is assuming the comrades don’t decide to extract a price for passing ATEC in the Upper House.
So far, Mr Clare is blowing equity smoke and polishing student support mirrors – talking up the Government’s plan for demand-driven funded undergraduate places for low SES students.
“What we are doing here is increasing the number of students at university, and providing universities with extra incentive to enrol more students from poorer families and from the bush,” he told Universities Australia last week.
Which has nothing to do with why HASS, Bized and Law Degrees cost students a $50k bomb.
And he presents the Government as a friend to students. “We have cut student debt by 20%,” he said in Question Time, Wednesday. Not quite. What the Government did before the last election was cut graduates’ HELP debt, not low-income graduates, all of them.
Mr Clare also gave a new line a run in the Reps, that the government wants to “to take the next step to help to make getting a university degree quicker and cheaper.”
But not by reducing discriminatory fees. Mr Clare wants ATEC to create a national accreditation scheme so that a training course can count as credit for the first year of a relevant degree. And did Mr Clare tell the House that if students used the Government’s Free TAFE scheme they could a save a year of uni fees? You can bet your worded-up weasel he did.
“These are the sorts of commonsense things that we need to do to make it easier to get the skills that you need and that Australia needs,” he added.
None of which has anything to do with the cost of JRG targeted degrees – which might be the point.