Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women's Issues) Share this | Hansard source

There are two sides to this picture. On the one side, there is the amount that the universities receive under the Commonwealth Grant Scheme and, on the other side, there is the amount that a university can charge a student under the Commonwealth supported place arrangement, the loan assistance scheme. In the case of accounting, administration, economics and commerce, we aligned the Commonwealth Grant Scheme funding with that of law. That means that universities are able to align those courses with law for student contributions if they so wish. The point that I am making is that, given that the universities will be receiving an extra $557 million in additional funding under this initiative and they can distribute the funds across all discipline clusters, I anticipate that some universities will take the opportunity to leave—we will call it HECS for the purposes of the debate—the student contribution loan scheme as it is.

As to which universities will do this, obviously that is a matter for each university and I hope that in due course we will see that response. As to whether or not only one university chose not to raise its HECS fees, I cannot comment on that. I would obviously have to check the records as to which universities did or did not. The point about the student contribution loan scheme is that students in accounting, administration, economics and commerce degrees have the opportunity to earn considerable lifetime earnings as graduates from those courses, akin to law students. The government believes that it is fair for students to contribute to the cost of their education, particularly in courses where the opportunity to earn significantly greater salaries over their lifetime than a person who has not had the opportunity to go to university is taken into account. I think it is appropriate that accounting, administration, economics and commerce graduates are treated in a similar fashion to law graduates.

See this speech in context