The Job-ready Graduates (JRG) reforms significantly increased student contributions while reducing university funding, creating inequities without improving the effectiveness of Australia’s student contribution system. The changes lowered debts for graduates with strong repayment prospects and increased debts for those less likely to repay, resulting in lower-income graduates bearing a disproportionate burden.
This paper argues that the system’s primary purpose is to raise revenue for higher education while protecting graduates with low incomes through income-contingent repayments. Using 2021 Census data, it challenges proposals to set contribution rates according to estimated lifetime earnings by field of study. Graduate outcomes vary widely within most disciplines, making a single estimate of lifetime benefit unreliable. Significant differences in occupation, earnings and gender further weaken this approach, with medical studies being a notable exception.
A single annual student contribution rate is proposed as a simpler, fairer and potentially more effective alternative. Such a model could maintain university funding through corresponding subsidy adjustments while avoiding the inequities created by JRG. Additional public investment should prioritise student support and improving access to higher education.
