How much help debt

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What are the current HELP repayment rates? HECS-HELP debt has to be repaid through the taxation system once your repayment income is above the compulsory repayment threshold, even if you are still studying. The compulsory repayment threshold is adjusted each year. The amount you repay each year is a percentage of your repayment income.

A number of Senate amendments to the Bill were accepted by the Government. These had the effect of restricting the provisions relating to New Zealanders and non-citizens to those who:.

The Senate also attempted to amend the Bill so that the new repayment rates would only apply to those commencing their courses after 1 January , but this was not accepted by the Government. They included:.

The Bill was the subject of a Senate Committee report. The Budget proposed a number of minor changes to take effect from 1 January No new scholarships were awarded from , although those who already had scholarships would continue to be exempt from HECS. Major changes to HECS are announced in the Budget as part of the reform of the higher education funding system. These are described in the section Recent Developments above. In October the Government announced that it would provide 19 HECS exemption scholarships: 15 for allocation by higher education institutions for postgraduate study, and for allocation by State and Territory teacher education authorities for teachers' professional development.

The number of postgraduate exemption scholarships was increased to 17 in Holders of the awards would not be liable for HECS. The scheme was to further encourage the participation of equity groups by exempting one thousand new students each year from the HECS charge, building up to a pool of students by the year Scholarships were allocated to each university on the basis of the number of Australian undergraduates at each institution.

The scholarships were awarded by universities in accordance with guidelines which specified that:. Under the scheme, the Commonwealth Government pays the contributions of those students who do not wish to pay 'up-front', then recoups the money through the tax system when the student begins to earn taxable income.

Students do not pay interest on their HECS liabilities. As the government estimated that the increase in the CPI in 01 caused by the introduction of the GST was around 2. In , parliamentary concern about the possible impact of the HECS on access to higher education resulted in an amendment of the Employment, Education and Training Act , requiring the Higher Education Council to produce regular reports on the operation of HECS.

All of these reports can be accessed from this DEST page. The twelfth and final report in the series was published in June In most of its reports the Higher Education Council concluded that HECS was not deterring students from participating in higher education.

However, it also noted that it was not possible to draw conclusions relating to the precise impact of the scheme from general enrolment statistics because demand fluctuated over time and enrolments were influenced by factors other than HECS. To obtain more information, the Council commissioned a number of surveys. These include:. Andrews concluded that 'HECS does not appear to have substantially affected the level of applications or enrolments of students in general although little can be said concerning students from low SES backgrounds' p.

It considered that the main determinants of university participation were values and attitudes towards higher education rather than financial considerations. However, these conclusions were predominantly derived from an examination of the literature before , and thus could not assess any longer term impact of the increases to HECS. Chapman and Ryan, Income contingent financing of student charges for higher education: assessing the Australian innovation May surveyed more recent studies and analysed data from the Youth in Transition Survey.

They also concluded that the introduction of HECS did not adversely effect participation. In particular, it did not result in decreases in participation by prospective students from relatively poor families. However, a recent survey by Richard James, Socioeconomic background and higher education participation: an analysis of school students' aspirations and expectations , April has indicated that concerns about costs may adversely affect participation by the socioeconomically disadvantaged.

The survey did not specifically address HECS issues. The former report concluded that the changes to HECS had the effect of reducing demand for higher education among school leaver applicants by around 9 students per year, and among 'mature age' applicants by around 17 persons per year. The main findings of the Martin and Karmel report were:.

Statistics on participation in higher education by persons with socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds are published by DEST in the annual Selected Higher Education Student Statistics. The most recent data can be obtained from these tables XL file. Despite the growth in the system over the last 15 years, participation in higher education is restricted to a relatively small part of the population.

In only 6. For 20 24 year old persons, the figure was In terms of educational attainment, in The level of attainment declines with age: Long and M. The survey had 34 respondents from twenty universities. According to the authors, the survey provides strong evidence to support concerns that students' financial circumstances are preventing them from gaining optimum value from their studies.

HECS received considerable support among students as an alternative to the payment of upfront fees, even though it could result in levels of debt that many students considered worrying. The students who were most likely to make use of the deferred HECS option were those with relatively disadvantaged financial circumstances.

The AVCC Submission on Welfare Reform June makes reference to a number of other studies regarding the financial situation of higher education students. The International Comparative Higher Education Finance and Accessibility Project is a three year, Ford Foundation-financed project to study the worldwide shift in higher education costs from taxpayers to students. The section on Australia contains much useful information on higher education costs, including both fees and living expenses.

One of the justifications for increasing the cost of higher education for students is that they obtain substantial lifetime benefits from such education. Others argue that the social benefits of higher education are sufficient reason for a greater public contribution.

There have been a number of attempts to quantify the returns to investment in higher education in the Australian context. The recent work by J.