Australian Greens Education spokesperson Senator Mehreen Faruqi has said that the government’s plan to hike up university fees should be scrapped, following confirmation in the Senate Covid-19 Committee this week that no government modelling had been done on the effect of changing course costs.
Senator Faruqi said:
“Not only are these fee hikes grossly unfair for students, there’s actually no evidence that they will do what the government intends them to: encourage more students to take up STEM and other ‘priority’ courses.
“The government’s package simply doesn’t stack up. We’ve heard from key stakeholders across the sector that all it will do is put students further into debt and cut more funding for essential teaching and learning on campuses.
“As our universities continue to suffer huge job losses, now is the time to invest heavily in higher education, not take the easy way out and transfer costs from the government onto students. No one wins from the Liberals’ cruel austerity package,” she said.
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