Higher Education Contribution Scheme

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HECS stands for "Higher Education Contribution Scheme" or, since 2005, HELP stands for "Higher Education Loan Program" and describes the Australian model for collecting tuition fees; in the German discussion, HECS is often translated as "system of subsequent tuition fees".

In the late 1980s, the Australian higher education landscape was fundamentally restructured to provide broader sections of the population with access to higher education. The white paper entitled 'Higher Education: A Policy Statement' from 1988 provides detailed information about the reforms that may be sought . a. included the demand for tuition fees to be introduced. After tuition fees were abolished in 1974, they were reintroduced nationwide in 1989 according to the HECS model.

HECS was developed by Bruce Chapman, Professor of Economics at the Australian National University in Canberra . This contribution model provides that tuition fees are pre-financed by means of a government loan and repayment only begins after entering professional life . The social element of HECS consists of three components: firstly, this loan is granted interest-free ; secondly, the obligation to reimburse the tuition fees only applies when the debtor's income exceeds a specified threshold, and thirdly, the repayment is made in income-related installments; these three components differentiate HECS from the American or British fee model. An immediate and complete payment of the tuition fees before the start of the respective academic year is rewarded with a discount of 20%.

Current developments

Even if these pillars have not been touched, the Australian government is exerting influence on HECS, on the one hand by indirectly determining the amount of the tuition fees and by regulating the amount of gross income from which the repayment obligation takes effect. In 2005, the regulations were updated as follows: Depending on the current gross income, between 4% (from AUS- $ 30,000 gross income) and 8% (from AUS- $ 60,000 gross income) of the earnings in the form of a tax to the Australian Taxation Office ( ATO) discharged; There is no repayment obligation below the income threshold of AUS- $ 30,000.

When HECS was introduced in 1989, students paid a flat rate of AUS- $ 2,400 per year regardless of the subject . After the change of government in 1996, when the right-wing liberal party under Prime Minister John Howard took power, the fees were increased drastically and the unit fee was initially replaced by a three-tier tariff, and from 2004 by a four-tier tariff. The tuition fees were staggered by subject in relation to the predicted future income: the highest tuition fees are incurred in law and medicine , the natural sciences are in second place on the fee scale, while a degree in the social sciences and humanities is comparatively inexpensive. The fourth - and cheapest - level is made up of courses which the government classifies as 'national priorities'. These are currently nursing and education sciences, as there is a shortage of labor here, and the demand for these courses is to be stimulated with artificially low tuition fees. As can be seen from the classification of law as a comparatively inexpensive book science in the most expensive category, the actual costs for a study place are not the criterion for the amount of the tuition fees, but only the forecast economic value.

Another modification of the original HECS concept is the mode of allocation of study places. Australian citizens are entitled to so-called Commonwealth supported study places. In principle, access to these courses is open to all Australians, but - to put it simply - depends on their high school graduation grade and their age. Receives an Australian student for his desire course not approved due to a bad school grades or due to an insufficient number of places, he can still apply for a license as a full fee paying student; up to 35 percent of the study places may be given to local full fee paying students. Then, for example, for a law student instead of AUS- $ 8,018 as a Commonwealth supported student, the sum of AUS- $ 19,200 as a full fee paying student is due, for a degree in the humanities AUS- $ 15,120 instead of AUS- $ 4,808.

Rating

In recent years, in the context of the discussion in Germany about the introduction of tuition fees, Australia has received unprecedented good press for its system of trailing tuition fees , which its supporters consider fair and socially balanced. HECS makes student funding independent of social origin and links it to future income: Only those who have benefited financially from their studies have to repay the loan.

But there are also negative developments: The state is using the charging of tuition fees as an opportunity to withdraw increasingly from university funding. This is the result of a study by the Australian National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU). As impressive as the absolute amount of the tuition fees charged and as large as their percentage of the university budget is, the universities benefit from it directly. Nonetheless, universities are more dependent than ever on this source of income, as state grants are steadily declining: While government grants at federal level made up 66 percent of the university budget in 1992, this proportion fell to just 41 percent in 2001; for 2005 the grants are likely to be well below 40 percent and will continue to decline in the coming years.

But HECS could also prove to be a boomerang for the government itself : Currently the granted HECS loans exceed the repayments made by around AUS- $ 9 billion; By 2007, conservative forecasts even assume a deficit of AUS $ 15 billion. The reasons for this are to be found in the fact that not all university graduates manage to reach the income threshold of AUS- $ 30,000 and are therefore exempt from the repayment obligation. The large number of Australians who turn their backs on their home country after completing their studies to work in the USA or Great Britain are also exempt from the repayment obligation.

Since the HECS deficit ultimately has to be covered by the public purse, the government's financial planning gets into difficulties. As a result, the tuition fees are gradually being increased, while the low repayment rates have led to a steady lowering of the income threshold above which the obligation to repay takes effect.

See also

Web links

Further information

  • Klemens Himpele, Lars Schewe: The Government pockets the difference! In: Association of democratic scientists / free association of student bodies (ed.): Tuition fees, Elite Conceptions & Agenda 2010. Marburg 2004, ISBN 3-924684-93-6 , pp. 36–38.
  • Action alliance against tuition fees (Ed.): Arguments against downstream tuition fees. Berlin 2008. (PDF on: abs-bund.de ; 905 kB)