Australians owe $14 Billion on HECS

[krisbarry]

Maybe we could have a national HECS debt free day, where all HECS debt accounts are put into a lottery draw and 100 winners recieve a debt-waiver(all fees are cleared), that way it frees just 100 more student out of this poverty trap, each and every year.

Just a thought...as an alternative

 

[Matt123]

I'm in my second year of uni now. What I did to avoid HECS was to work solidly in from year 11 up until now. There's a way to qualify for youth allowance where if you earn $18k in the 18 months after you leave high school you qualify. So now I've quit my job and am surviving on youth allowance (I'm overloading on units instead of working to finish my degrees earlier). I also saved up that $18k and can now survive on interest on that as well as youth allowance. Plus there's money to be made trading as well . I could probably pay all of my HECS fees myself, but my parents decided to pay half as well, though if I fail any units I have to pay them back. It all just comes down to managing your money.

 

[visual]

I'm 19 and have about $10000 of hecs racked up so far.

Oh by the way, it's 'HELP' debt now. If they change the name of it evey year nobody will notice they are being shafted, right?

Silence, I believe 10000 is the max the loan can be .
Why didnt you simply borrow what you needed instead of the max you could?

 

[Prospector]

Your son is a very lucky man to have his HECS debt paid for by his parents, most students have to just wear this debt and don't have the luxury of wealthy parents coming to the rescue.

Yes its pretty normal for lectures to start late, or not at all.

Hmm, why assume we are wealthy? My Partner works a 60 hour week in our company and I work around 30 hours. We have a mortgage, our cars are at least six years old, bought them all second hand, and are standard family cars (Holden and Nissan), our house is not lavish, we travel economy class, and consider ourselves to be comfortable!

Sister in law on the other hand, does not pay her daughters HECS, could work a full time job but doesnt because that would stop her family tax benefits, her husband is able to salary sacrifice $15,000 a year because he works in a benevolent hospital so gets special benefits!

 

[krisbarry]

I'm in my second year of uni now. What I did to avoid HECS was to work solidly in from year 11 up until now. There's a way to qualify for youth allowance where if you earn $18k in the 18 months after you leave high school you qualify. So now I've quit my job and am surviving on youth allowance (I'm overloading on units instead of working to finish my degrees earlier). I also saved up that $18k and can now survive on interest on that as well as youth allowance. Plus there's money to be made trading as well . I could probably pay all of my HECS fees myself, but my parents decided to pay half as well, though if I fail any units I have to pay them back. It all just comes down to managing your money.

But you cannot avoid HECS for the rest of your life...I tried that trick too. Earning under the thresholds etc...But the longer you leave it, the worse it gets. I sat on my debt for 10 years, hoping it would just somehow go away.

My advice would be to start paying it now!

 

[krisbarry]

Hmm, why assume we are wealthy? My Partner works a 60 hour week in our company and I work around 30 hours. We have a mortgage, our cars are at least six years old, bought them all second hand, and are standard family cars (Holden and Nissan), our house is not lavish, we travel economy class, and consider ourselves to be comfortable!

Sister in law on the other hand, does not pay her daughters HECS, could work a full time job but doesnt because that would stop her family tax benefits, her husband is able to salary sacrifice $15,000 a year because he works in a benevolent hospital so gets special benefits!

I still consider it wealthy, or stupid, not sure which one it is?

Wealthy that you can pay for your sons education...or just plain stupid, he incurred the debt, so let him pay for it....its not your debt or your ploblem to solve.

I agree with Tech/a, he is not paying for his sons HECS debt

 

[Prospector]

Whats wrong with paying for your education----Students may just value it!

Well, mine was free back in 1974 but that didnt mean to say I didnt value it!

Rather than have that HECS debt as such hanging around their neck, maybe people who have a Uni degree could be taxed differently - say an additional 1% tax (or whatever)- that way high earners like Medical Specialists, and in the future Mining Engineers, can contribute more effectively for the term of their working lives?

 

[Prospector]

I still consider it wealthy, or stupid, not sure which one it is?

Wealthy that you can pay for your sons education...or just plain stupid, he incurred the debt, so let him pay for it....its not your debt or your ploblem to solve.

I agree with Tech/a, he is not paying for his sons HECS debt

STUPID to pay off something at a 25% discount? You know, a lot of parents think that providing education for their kids is an investment, and if that includes Uni then so be it. Maybe we give education a higher priority than nice clothes - god, I even shop at Target!

 

[krisbarry]

We are just starting to see some of the ripple effects of this relatively new debt that has arrived:

* children staying in their parents home for much longer now.

* poverty traps

* Debt outways assests/earning capaicities

* Reduced first home buyers (Homelessnes)

* Ex uni students travelling overseas to escape the debt

* Parents picking up the costs of childrens uni fees

* Prostituation

* Drug deals

and so on and so forth

 

[Prospector]

We are just starting to see some of the ripple effects of this relatively new debt that has arrived:

* Ex uni students travelling overseas to escape the debt

* Drug deals

The first of these is a good point - people working OS dont pay the fees, but I guess never working in Australia would be an issue after a few years.

Drug deals - do you really think that people with a HECS debt would turn to prostitution and drugs!!!

 

[krisbarry]

The first of these is a good point - people working OS dont pay the fees, but I guess never working in Australia would be an issue after a few years.

Drug deals - do you really think that people with a HECS debt would turn to prostitution and drugs!!!

Please don't be so naive, I have first hand knowledge of uni students and ex- uni students working in the sex industry and doing drug deals to clear HECS debts

Ask around, I am sure it won't take you long to find a drug pusher or a prostiitue that would freely admit to this.

 

[krisbarry]

Just remember that with every new debt imposed on the youth, crime and prostitution will emerge

 

[Prospector]

So if having a HECS debt causes people to deal drugs or go into prostitution, why are we, as responsible parents, STUPID for ensuring that our kids dont have this debt hanging around their necks and therefore having to resort to such activities to pay it off !

 

[visual]

stop.
I`m paying for my sons hecs,and we definetely arent rich or stupid. As Prospector pointed out claiming a 25% discount is definitely not stupid.Yes tech didnt pay for his sons hecs but then he was bright enough to qualify for a scholarship,
Some of us consider our children our responsibility. I definitely do.
By the way we do this by living as frugally as possible and by paying for what we have in cash or on time,we dont ignore a debt like you for 10 years hoping it would go away,now thats stupid.

 

[visual]

Please don't be so naive, I have first hand knowledge of uni students and ex- uni students working in the sex industry and doing drug deals to clear HECS debts

Ask around, I am sure it won't take you long to find a drug pusher or a prostiitue that would freely admit to this.

Stop,people will use any excuse that seems plausible for behaviour that they know is unacceptable,if prostitution seems like something that you would buy thats what they will say,
On the other hand the morons who on another thread are blaming the boomers gen,for the fact that they dont know how to make sacrifes and are in debt because of a lifestyle they cant maintain are blaming them.

 

[ghotib]

I can't come at drug dealing, but I can see prostitution being a viable method of earning for students, provided their doing it on their own terms and can stay clear of drugs. It's certainly not new and it's not even particularly hidden, though the evidence seems to be largely anecdotal. Here's one report I thought was interesting, especially the story of the PhD http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/sex-and-the-city/2005/09/11/1126377190900.html

How much the increase, if any, is driven by HECS and how much by other factors I don't know.

However, I came across this report of an unintended consequence:

According to researchers at Australian National University in Canberra, however, the introduction of HECS has had a surprising and unwelcome effect on people's attitudes to the tax system.

Like the UK the Australian tax system relies heavily on a regime of self-assessment.

What the ANU team have discovered is that requiring students to contribute to HECS has significantly increased their propensity to cheat on their tax returns.

What's more, it turns out that dissatisfaction with the quality of education also has an additional indirect effect - those students who feel they have not got value for money are even more likely to lie to the tax man.

( http://www.demosgreenhouse.co.uk/archives/000412.html )

FWIW, I think HECS was a bad idea from the beginning, because I think a model that treats students as consumers is fundamentally flawed. Training workers is only one of the needs universities should be able to meet in a civilised society, and HECS doesn't even fund that particularly well.

 

[Matt123]

But you cannot avoid HECS for the rest of your life...I tried that trick too. Earning under the thresholds etc...But the longer you leave it, the worse it gets. I sat on my debt for 10 years, hoping it would just somehow go away.

My advice would be to start paying it now!

I don't have any HECS debt, it's all payed upfront (with a 20% discount too).

 

[silence]

Silence, I believe 10000 is the max the loan can be .
Why didnt you simply borrow what you needed instead of the max you could?

Hmm, I've never heard that rule before. I've just been racking it up each semester.. I'm halfway through my 3 year degree, by the end it will be $18000+

 

[Julia]

STUPID to pay off something at a 25% discount? You know, a lot of parents think that providing education for their kids is an investment, and if that includes Uni then so be it. Maybe we give education a higher priority than nice clothes - god, I even shop at Target!

Prospector

You are being astonishingly extravagant! TARGET??? What is wrong with the second hand op shops???

Julia

 

[Julia]

We are just starting to see some of the ripple effects of this relatively new debt that has arrived:

* children staying in their parents home for much longer now.

* poverty traps

* Debt outways assests/earning capaicities

* Reduced first home buyers (Homelessnes)

* Ex uni students travelling overseas to escape the debt

* Parents picking up the costs of childrens uni fees

* Prostituation

* Drug deals

and so on and so forth

Stop the Clock:

With the exception of those points above which specifically relate to uni students, all the above can apply to the population in general. I know far more people who have never been near a university who are or have been involved in the other problems you mention than I do students who, on the whole, do astonishingly well on meagre incomes.

I don't expect this to be a popular view, but I would like to see some of the huge surplus spent on reducing HECS instead of doling out the now customary pathetically small tax cuts which mean little to the individual tax payer in comparison to the difference it would make to a student during their years of study. We should be prepared to invest in education for the sake of all of our futures.

Julia