ACADEMICS working in humanities, arts and social sciences (HASS) won't give up the fight to see proposed fee hikes for students reversed in the future.
Australasian Council of Deans of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities president Professor Catharine Coleborne said a premise of the federal government's overhaul of university funding was that HASS degrees didn't produce graduates with skills for future jobs and the economy, but this was not true.
"We can back that up with the government's own research and data, and our own research and data and that by companies like Deloitte, all of which points to fact that graduates from arts and social science degrees do have employability outcomes," Professor Coleborne said.
She is also the University of Newcastle's Head of School of Humanities and Social Science.
"All of us in the sector can work together to maybe change [these reforms], because if it's reviewed in a couple of years time or if governments change there will be an opportunity.
"But I do worry that it sets us on a course that will be very hard to undo in the future."
The Job-Ready Graduates Package is poised to become law, after minor party Centre Alliance struck a deal with the government to enable it to pass the reforms through the Senate, with amendments.
The package will see the government increase its contribution to the cost of degrees in "key growth areas".
But it will reduce its contribution to others, such as humanities and communications courses, which will more than double in cost for students.
The government said the changes will create an additional 100,000 student places by 2030.
Professor Coleborne said while more STEM graduates may be needed, HASS graduates gained competencies including critical thinking, communication, human skills and "soft skills" that research had showed were missing skills for future jobs.
"We don't understand why the government ignores its own research but also all the other evidence that's mounting up," she said.
"We can only therefore assume that the arguments about HASS degrees are really positioned politically.
Where you've got s"enators and the university sector broadly not disputing those claims, that's a problem."
Professor Coleborne said students would still want to pursue HASS degrees "but it will depend on their own family backgrounds and their appetite for debt".
She said those from lower socio economic status backgrounds and women would be the worst affected.
"We may see a gradual lessening of critical thinking skills and abilities in our population," she said.
"It has been interpreted by some people as a way of lessening that strain or vein of critical and insightful thinking in a society.
"I think that's very dark thinking, it's about the idea of social engineering. I don't know if I would go that far, but I think it's enormously short sighted."
Professor Coleborne said Australia may see people with less well-rounded skills to solve future problems unless universities ensure "students take courses from across an array of areas", which would also "share the debt burden across the student body".
She said it was important students who wanted to study HASS weren't "put off" and knew their degrees didn't result in poor outcomes, and that universities rallied to support them in different ways.
Vice Chancellor Alex Zelinsky said UON "will continue to offer courses our students want and to work with our region and industries to develop a highly skilled workforce to support the economic recovery of our regions".
National Tertiary Education Union vice president (academic) Dr Terry Summers said the union believed the bill was unfair to students and "terrible on a whole raft of fronts, predominantly because it's just a cut to funding".
He said universities would even receive less funding per student in many STEM subjects, "which means you have to do more with less".
University of Newcastle Students Association president Luka Harrison said the Centre Alliance formalising its support for the bill was "one of the darkest days in the history of higher education" and a "disgraceful betrayal of the entire tertiary education sector, especially future students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds".
"This package will damn an entire generation of students to increased debt in an economic climate where it is harder than ever to enter the workforce," he said.
"These changes will further exacerbate a failing university sector that is haemorrhaging jobs, with the Coalition already refusing to offer Jobseeker support to public universities."
Mr Harrison said regardless of whether or not the bill passes, the student movement would continue to "fight this government that is seemingly devoid of compassion".
"Education is a human right and students will keep fighting until we achieve free, equitable and quality tertiary education for all Australians."
