University Fee increase exposed

The truth about the deregulation of university fees is starting to become apparent.

Melbourne University came out and said the obvious that they will be increasing their fees. I don't know if anyone expected fees to increase by 60%!

In an email sent to staff on Friday, University of Melbourne vice-chancellor Glyn Davis said fees may have to rise by as much as 61 per cent in some courses as a result of funding cuts and deregulation announced in the federal budget.He told staff that students would get "nothing new for this increased debt".

The Education Minister, Pyne got on Sunday morning TV today and had the audacity to say that universities who hit students with excessive fees would be priced out of the market.However, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten says both the Education Minister and Prime Minister cannot assure students fees will not rise significantly as a result of budget changes.

He said "time and time and time again refused to guarantee that we won't see the rise of $100,000 science degrees, that we won't see university degrees doubling in cost. They can't guarantee that prices won't go up," "The reason they can't is because they know prices will go up for kids hoping to go to university in Australia." What he doesn't say is that the previous government made serious reductions in funding to universities to help page for the Gonski reform package.

There is also a serious concern that public funding might permanently disappear. Pyne's argument sounds reminiscent of a previous education minister ( Kemp) who claimed that increasing funding to private schools would see them reduce their fees. That of course never happened and we are stuck now with the morally corrupt Howard/Kemp funding model for our schools.

Of course the Senate still haven't approved of Pyne's higher education reforms so it will be interesting to see what The new Senate decide to do. Pyne is deluding himself and compounding his government's lies if he thinks Universities aren't going to take the opportunity to raise their fees, especially in high turnover popular courses and courses with a high profile such as law and medicine. If locals can't pay then I'm sure they'll find students from Asia who will.( It will be interesting to see what happens with Education)