Education Minister Jason Clare has announced that, as part of the upcoming budget, part of the student debt of people with Higher Education Loan Program (HELP) accounts, better known as HECS, will be forgiven.
Clare said a student who graduates with an average debt of $26,500 would have about $1,200 wiped from their outstanding HELP loans this year. This will get rid of around $3 billion in debt for more than three million Australians, Clare said.
Along with wiping out part of student debt, the budget will also include a measure to index all HECS debts to the “lower of the consumer price index or the wage price index in any given year”, as was recommended by a recent review of tertiary education sector.
