Voters back Labor’s proposed HECS changes. They are even keener for an overhaul of uni fees

Most Australians think university fees should be cheaper and student loans should be lower, giving Labor a green light for higher education reforms as it goes to the election with a pledge to cut HECS debts by $16 billion.

An exclusive survey reveals 54 per cent of Australians believe it is a good idea for the government to cut debts by 20 per cent for the 3 million Australians with student loans, while only 27 per cent say it is a bad idea.

But the key adviser who helped devise the HECS regime in the 1980s, Australian National University professor Bruce Chapman, warned on Monday against the “fantasy” of free education and rejected the idea of cancelling all student debt – a promise the Greens are making to young Australians.

Labor’s HECS policy is targeted at young Australians, whose votes it hopes to avoid losing to the Greens.Credit: Fairfax Media

The survey, conducted last month for this masthead by research company Resolve Strategic, found 45 per cent of eligible voters backed reducing student fees while 26 per cent said degrees should be free.

Students have been paying more for university degrees over time and now cover almost 45 per cent of the cost after Morrison government changes in 2021 that more than doubled the fees for some arts courses, up from about 24 per cent when HECS was launched in 1989.

Labor is promising to cut student debt and lift the student loan repayment threshold from $54,435 to $67,000 if re-elected.

The Coalition argues Labor’s policy is unfair to the 24 million Australians without student loans who will have to help pay for it, saying people with a degree will have higher lifetime earnings and should bear more of that cost.

But the Greens are going to the election with a policy to make university and TAFE “free for all” and to wipe all student debt, which means cancelling about $80 billion in loans.

Chapman warned that cancelling student debt would be regressive because it would place a bigger burden on people on lower incomes.

Speaking at the National Press Club, he said free university was a “fantasy” because taxpayers would bear the cost.

Wiping the $80 billion in debt, he said, would be like giving $27,000 to every graduate when the money could be used to improve hospitals, increase Newstart for the unemployed or add to income support for single mothers.

Chapman backed Labor’s plan to increase the income threshold for HECS repayments, saying the new benchmark of $67,000 returned the scheme to its original design in asking graduates to contribute once they started earning average incomes.

“These were the most important improvements in HECS in 30 years,” he said.

Chapman also called for changes to how university fees were decided, saying the prices should be set according to the lifetime earnings of graduates.

The university sector has been pushing for an overhaul of fees since the Coalition’s Job-ready Graduates scheme was implemented in 2021. A review of the system last year found it had saddled some students with “untenable” levels of debt and disproportionately affected Indigenous and female students.

Chapman slammed the 2021 changes, which were supposed to encourage science and engineering courses and discourage arts courses, saying the result had been a budget saving without a change in the courses students wanted to take.

However, the government is unlikely to announce fee changes before the next election because it is setting up a new tertiary education commission to lead that work, which won’t run until mid-next year. HECS relief has been pitched as an immediate measure to offset the high cost of course fees for some students until new fee structures are worked out.

Chapman also argued for the HECS scheme to be broadened to more TAFE and vocational courses, as well as changing the system so students could use HECS for more postgraduate studies rather than having to pay large up-front fees.

Resolve Strategic director Jim Reed said the survey findings showed “half-decent” support for Labor’s HECS policy, which was targeted at demographics where the government was competing with the Greens.

“In the most general sense, this is a cost-of-living measure, but it’s highly targeted at graduates. This is one group that the Greens have been winning over, but the recent Queensland election has shown that they can be won back with the right appeals,” Reed said.

“The Coalition’s base is increasingly school or trade educated, so this doesn’t benefit them. In fact, it can be argued that they are worse off in helping to pay for others’ debt to the tune of $16 billion.”

There was more universal support for overhauling university fees altogether, Reed said.

Seventy-one per cent of respondents to the Resolve Political Monitor survey backed cutting university fees – 45 per cent wanted costs reduced with subsidies or price caps, and 26 per cent believed university should be free – while 19 per cent thought fees should remain the same and 11 per cent were unsure.

Seventy-seven per cent of 18- to 34-year-olds wanted changes, with 36 per cent supporting free degrees and 41 per cent saying they should be cheaper. Among over-55s, 20 per cent said degrees should be free and 48 per cent agreed the cost should be reduced.

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