Coronavirus: Federal bureaucrats ‘don’t know’ if university fee reforms will work

Bureaucrats behind Dan Tehan’s overhaul of uni fees say they ‘don’t know’ if it will push students towards job-creating courses.

Federal bureaucrats behind Education Minister Dan Tehan’s overhaul of university fees say they “don’t know” if it will push students towards post-pandemic job-creating courses and have little evidence price signals affect what young Australians choose to study.

Mr Tehan hailed his proposed changes to student fees – which slash the costs of maths, teaching and science units and boost the price of law and arts ­degrees – two months ago as a plan to encourage students to undertake courses that would best aid the COVID-19 economic recovery.

On Tuesday evening, officials from the Education Department confirmed they had done no modelling on how the overhaul of fees would change student ­behaviour.

Department of Education deputy secretary Rob Heferen told the Senate’s COVID-19 committee previous attempts to put a price signal into the HECS-HELP system had not significantly changed what students studied.

Under questioning from ­opposition home affairs spokeswoman Kristina Keneally, Mr Heferen also said he did not know if this new policy would be any different.

“The government, by significantly reducing the cost for the students in those disciplines … that’s obviously an attempt to say we want to make those things more attractive and we want people to enrol (in) them,” he told the committee.

“Previous times when fees have been changed, the response from students has been pretty muted. There will be some students who will say what will the financial incentives be when I finish. How many? Don’t know.

“The idea of trying to measure some elasticity in the future … your question to me is how many will do it (take up job-creating, cheaper courses) and the answer is: I don’t know.”

Mr Heferen said it would be clearer at the end of the year if the student fee changes – which still have to face parliament – have had any effect on what students will want to learn next year.

When he announced his reforms in June, Mr Tehan said the rationale was to change student behaviour and incentivise them to take up certain courses.

“Universities must teach Australians the skills needed to succeed in the jobs of the future,” Mr Tehan said at the time.

“We will also incentivise students to make more job-relevant choices, that lead to more job-ready graduates, by reducing the student contribution in areas of expected employment growth and ­demand.”

On Tuesday, Mr Tehan refuted his bureaucrats and said the evidence showed fee changes can influence students’ decisions.

“The evidence was clear when we looked at it: when the student contribution for maths and sciences was reduced in 2009 the number of students applying to study science grew from 13,795 to 26,272 in 2012,” Mr Tehan said.

“As well as changing the costs for courses, we are also changing behaviour by promoting careers in science, technology, engineering and maths and reforming senior secondary pathways.”