The Coalition has revealed its plan to cut free TAFE, costing students about $4300 each

A Coalition pledge to scrap free TAFE would make students in the 10 most popular courses pay more than $4000 per person, hurting women and regional students the most.

Exclusive: Students enrolled in the 10 most popular free TAFE courses will have to fork out on average $4395 per person under a Coalition government that scraps the program, which would have the biggest impact on women and regional Australians.

The Liberals have opposed Labor’s $1.5bn pledge to make fee-free TAFE permanent and signalled they will cut it in favour of other skills investments, but Labor says this will particularly hurt students in disability and aged care, early childhood education and cyber security courses.

The Albanese government has warned the Liberals’ plan will make it harder for Australia to meet future demand for key skills like the need for 21,000 early childcare workers and 70,000 nurses by 2035.

Skills and Training Minister Andrew Giles said the Coalition was showing “callous and blatant disregard for the hundreds of thousands of Australians who have used Free TAFE to study for a new career and a new opportunity.” Picture: NewsWire/Tamati Smith.

Both professions are in the top three most popular free TAFE courses, along with a Certificate III in individual support, which is for people who want to work in disability and aged care.

A student completing a Diploma in nursing would be hit with a fee of on average $10,378, while a Certificate IV in cyber security would cost about $4829 if free courses ended, according to new analysis.

Across the 10 areas with the highest enrolment, which also includes accounting and bookkeeping, business and school-based education support, students would have to pay more than $781m over five years if Labor’s TAFE program was dumped.

Labor has also argued scrapping these courses would disproportionately impact women, who make up about 60 per cent of students, as well as Australians living in regional and remote areas who account for about 30 per cent of enrolments in fee-free TAFE courses.

Skills and Training Minister Andrew Giles said the Coalition was showing “callous and blatant disregard for the hundreds of thousands of Australians who have used free TAFE to study for a new career and a new opportunity”.

“There have been around 600,000 enrolments in free TAFE across the country and the Liberals are promising to slam shut the door of opportunity to the next generation of people who’ll make up critical workforces,” he said.

“These are the nurses, early childhood educators, aged care and disability support workers Australia needs now and into the future.”

A Coalition campaign spokesman said the Liberals had “consistently opposed” Labor’s free TAFE program because it was “badly designed and poorly targeted”.

In the last two years there have been about 600,000 enrolments in fee-free TAFE, and 110,000 courses have been completed. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

“While we don’t know how many Australians have dropped out of the free TAFE program, we do know that just 13 per cent of courses have been completed successfully,” he said.

“We can do better than Labor’s free TAFE program and under a Dutton Coalition government we will do better.”

But Labor has rejected criticism the scheme is not resulting in completions, arguing it only began in 2023 and courses can take up to three years to complete with full-time study.

In the last two years there have been about 600,000 enrolments in fee-free TAFE, and 110,000 courses have been completed.