My Feelings on the Recent Education Reforms

I’m torn.

My job involves tutoring school children, and that has made me very aware of how important funding for education is. I’m also a university student, so I also know how important tertiary education funding is – at least to me. Julia Gillard’s plan to take money from universities to fund schools is one that is giving me one of those funny feelings.

Education funding is important, I thinks it’s an investment for the future. It’s good that they’re increasing the money for primary and secondary education, taking it from universities is making it hard for me to accept it as a good thing.

Here in Australia, if you are an Australian citizen (and fill other eligibility criteria), you can go to university on a Commonwealth Supported Place (CSP), which means that you pay between $3,000 and $9,000 dollars depending on the degree, and the government loans you the other umpteen thousand dollars, which you pay back when you have a full-time job and a stable salary. If you don’t fit those criteria or are an international student, you have to pay full fees, which cost about the same as private school education for a high school student. Other students get full or partial scholarships to university.

It is thought that universities will have to get rid of the 10% discount given to people who pay the money for university upfront, which is not a major problem – but it means I am paying more. Other thoughts are that some scholarships will turn into loans that will have to be repaid, which may turn students off applying for them and may lead to current scholarship students having to do the same. A lot of these scholarships, might I add, are for those from lower socio-economic backgrounds, whose families do not have the money to send them to uni otherwise. They’re usually incredibly smart people, and more often than not, the first member of their family to go to university.

I’m a little bit annoyed at this idea, in my opinion rightfully so, given I’m a uni student and this will affect me. Not as badly as others, but still, it makes uni more expensive and less accessible to those who really deserve it. But then you think about where the money is going – to school students, where it will be put to good use.

It frustrates me that I can’t find a position on this, it really does.