Following scandal after scandal, and a blow-out in students’ debts to $3 billion from about $300 million in 2012, Federal cabinet will today consider policy options such as restrictioning access to loans for courses run by high-risk private providers, more scrutiny of students’ ability to complete a course, and changes to the regulatory regime of tertiary financing. From The AFR:
Some stakeholders have proposed reducing the lifetime loan limit on individual students as a way of putting a better price signal into the market for both students and colleges, and/or having a more differentiated range of subsidies in place for different courses that directs resources to “areas of national economic, employer and student need” as occurs under state vocational training subsidy systems.
…the immediate time pressure is on the vocational system as a new regimen must be put in place before the educational year starts next year…
Good to see. Let’s hope we get some action.
The Grattan Institute’s recent report, entitled HELP for the future: Fairer Repayment of Student Debt, highlighted in all its hideous glory the escalation in HELP loans and doubtful debts:
With much of the rise in bad debts coming from the private VET sector, which has been subject to widespread rorting.
A few months back, The ABC also reported that the federal government was preparing to write-off billions of dollars of higher education loans on the back of a blow-out in bad debts relating to the scandal-ridden VET sector.
The Turnbull Government’s crack-down on the private VET sector could not come soon enough. The sector has been riddled with rorting and waste, has produced poor educational outcomes, and has blown a huge hole in the Budget.
