Uni boss’ bold plan to slash university fees and end $50,000 arts degrees

A prominent Sydney vice chancellor has revealed a plan to slash university fees and immediately end $50,000 arts degrees he says are leaving graduates with unsustainable debts.

Western Sydney University vice chancellor George Williams said students could not wait for the federal government’s plan to defer price reviews to the unformed Australian tertiary education commission.

George Williams wants the government to slash students’ university fees.Credit: Louise Kennerley

The fees plan championed by Williams, developed and costed by Innovative Research Universities (IRU), would cost the government $1.7 billion a year and cut the cost of an arts degree from $50,000 to $28,000.

It would eliminate the highest band of university fees – which now apply to most humanities, law, and commerce subjects – and create a new middle band.

“The system for setting university fees in the first place is broken and unfair,” Williams said. “It also needs urgent reform.

“Fees are out of kilter and at an unfair level for most students.”

Federal Education Minister Jason Clare said the government would “have more to say” about the proposed Australian tertiary education commission – which would be given the task of providing advice on fee changes – before the end of the year.

Western Sydney University vice chancellor George Williams says fees are “unfair for most students”.Credit: Edwina Pickles

“We are delivering significant reforms to build a better and fairer tertiary education system. We are doing this in a staged way,” Clare said.

Under the universities’ fee reform proposal, the top fee band, which will next year cost students $16,992 a year, would be scrapped.

Non-humanities courses in the top band such as commerce and law subjects would be moved to the new top band at $13,241.

Humanities and social sciences courses in the top fee band would go into the new middle band of $9314 a year, meaning an arts degree would cost about $28,000 rather than $50,000. This band would also include courses such as allied health, IT computing, engineering and science.

The bottom band, at $4627, would remain the same, encompassing courses in mathematics, education, English, foreign languages and nursing.

“It would still be quite a substantial student contribution, which I think is fair, but a big decrease and much fairer based on students’ earning potential,” Williams said.

The proposal would get rid of the Morrison government’s Job-ready Graduates scheme, which increased the price of most humanities subjects and also cut the cost of other expensive degrees such as commerce and law. It would restore funding to STEM subjects cut in the scheme too.

This year the government has made a number of pledges to reform HECS as it fights to inspire young voters before next year’s election, including a promise to wipe 20 per cent of student debt in a $16 billion move.

It also promised to reform the indexation of student loans, which is linked to inflation and resulted in 7.1 per cent increases in 2023, with legislation to enact this still before the parliament.

Williams said that while those policies were welcome, they did not address the root of the problem – the cost of degrees.

“Unfortunately, we’ve spent too much time this year talking about other things that are not and should not be the central concern of universities and the government,” he said.

“[The HECS changes] are very welcome, but it’s dealing with the symptom rather than that problem.

“It’s like saying you’ve got a housing affordability crisis so let’s reduce people’s mortgage payments, when the problem is the price in the first place.

“And it’s doing nothing for students entering the system where the critical problem is.”

Arts degrees used to be among the cheaper university courses for students, but the Morrison government’s reforms dramatically increased prices in a bid to divert students away from them.

The price of other degrees the government deemed of national priority – including engineering, IT, teaching and nursing – was reduced.

But the reforms have been widely loathed by universities, which say they are unfair to students while failing to achieve the aim of influencing their choices.

Group of Eight universities chief executive Vicki Thomson said fee reform and abolition of the Job-ready Graduates scheme could not come soon enough.

“It has been a total failure, with increasing debt levels baked in for our students in 2025,” she said.

“We need a university funding model that ensures our domestic students are treated fairly and equitably when it comes to financing and student debt arrangements.”

Clare said that when HECS was created, students paid about 24 per cent of the cost of a degree.

“Under John Howard this increased to 36 per cent. Under Scott Morrison this increased again to almost 45 per cent,” he said.

“We are fixing this for a generation of Australians with a student debt. But there is more to do.”

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