Following scandal after scandal, and a $3 billion Budget blow-out over four years, the Turnbull Government last week announced that it would introduce a new student loans scheme that will impose stricter eligibility criteria for courses, whereas student loans will also be capped.
Now, the Coalition has announced that it would slash by more than half the number of vocational education courses that will be eligible for student loans. From The Australian:
Senator Birmingham said the previous Labor government had made about 800 diploma-level courses eligible for the VET FEE-HELP scheme, resulting in expensive subsidies for courses that provide little economic benefit.
The minister expected only 347 courses would attract student loans after the clean-out, with the majority of courses deemed to have been “superseded or were lifestyle focused with little relevance to employment outcomes”.
“To develop this list, the Turnbull government has run a test over all of the different diploma-level and above qualifications that are out there to ensure they are on at least two state and territory skills needs list and we’ve looked at other areas of high economic need, such as STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) skills or agricultural skills, to make sure the list represents our national economic priorities,” Senator Birmingham said.
Proponents of the 478 ditched courses will have two weeks to lobby the government “if they can demonstrate very strong employment outcomes or strong cases” to retain the courses.
Senator Birmingham’s department said the list of approved courses would be listed on its website.
Already, the crackdown has caused one casualty, with one of the country’s largest (and dodgiest) private colleges, the Australian Institute of Professional Education (AIPE), collapsing:
Insolvency experts Ferrier Hodgson were yesterday appointed as external administrators of AIPE, which enrolled more than 16,000 students under the VET FEE-HELP student loan scheme…
The collapse of AIPE, which was headed by businessman Amjad Khanche, could leave thousands of students with no way of recouping those debts — court documents show just 1.3 per cent, or 208, completed training.
Despite the low completion rate, the college collected $243 million in funding through the loan scheme over three years…
The college has been at the centre of the vocational education rorts scandal, being pursued by the sector regular, the Australian Skills Quality Authority, and the competition regulator…
ASQA also alleged that 7454 students, some with debts of tens of thousands, had never been offered refunds despite being “unilaterally” withdrawn from courses.
Good to see. The private VET sector has been riddled with rorting and waste, has produced poor educational outcomes, and has blown a huge hole in the Budget. Reform cannot come soon enough.
