Federal parliament looks set to approve the latest attack on higher education after the Senate voted on October 8 to support the Higher Education Support Amendment (Job Ready Graduates and Supporting Regional and Rural Students) Bill 2020 which seeks to hike up fees for some university courses and reduce costs for others.
The government claims to want to have more students studying “job-ready courses” — degrees it believes will lead to greater employment after graduation. But to do this, Education Minister Dan Tehan has proposed large fee hikes for some courses, while degrees viewed as being “in demand” will have their fees lowered.
wage theft at universities are additional motivations for protest.
The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) said the bill “does nothing to address the funding and jobs crisis that is smashing our universities” and that it would destroy livelihoods and careers.
While extra-parliamentary opposition has remained steady, the Liberals have been forced to negotiate with the cross-bench Senators, as well as within the Coalition as the bill is predicted by the NUS to hurt regional students the most. The Nationals settled for a modified definition of humanities courses, exempting social work from the fee hikes.
One Nation came on board quickly, with Pauline Hanson negotiating a new definition of academic freedom, which some universities say will make it harder to discipline racist or sexist academics, and the reinstatement of a 10% fee discount for students paying their HECS debt in advance.
Needing one more vote in the Senate, the government turned its attention to Centre Alliance’s Sterling Griff, and Senators Jacqui Lambie and Rex Patrick. The student movement managed to convince the latter two to oppose the bill, with Lambie gaining widespread coverage for her refusal “to be the vote to tell poor kids … to dream a little cheaper” pitch.
Centre Alliance agreed to support the bill in exchange for the three South Australian universities being reclassified as “regional”, from low-growth metropolitan —thereby attracting greater funding. Students condemned Centre Alliance for selling out, after it had criticised the bill.
The House of Representatives now needs to sign off on the amendments approved by the Senate.
However, as Varsha Yajman, an organiser with Students Against Fee Increases noted, this is just the beginning for a new student movement which has been invigorated by people organising and taking action, including School Strike 4 Climate (SS4C).
A former SS4C activist, Yajman stated that the intersection between the fight for student rights and other rights such as having a safe climate is having an impact on the student movement and that 2021 “is where [the activism] will really flourish”.
[Leo Crnogorcevic is a member-elect of the Monash Student Association Student Affairs Committee.]