Labor and the Greens are competing to increase university funding, Labor promising $2,500 more per student and the Greens promising to tip in an extra 10% on top of reversing a planned 20% funding cut.
The Greens higher education spokesman, Robert Simms, will announce the Greens plan on Thursday. It is set to cost a total of $8.3bn over four years.
The Greens want to spend $4.8bn to reverse Coalition cuts to university funding and $2.2bn to fund a 10% increase in base funding per student at public universities by 2020. The rest of the package is a further $1.3bn investment in research.
Labor’s higher education policy, released in September, abandons the Coalition’s controversial plan to deregulate university fees.
It retains the Gillard government’s 2012 decision to remove previous limits on bachelor degree student numbers.
The Labor policy has a net cost of $2.5bn over four years, after offsets such as its intention to ditch plans to extend the demand-driven system to diplomas and associate degrees from non-university providers such as private colleges.
It promises to deliver $2,500 more on average per student than the government, which would more than reverse the Coalition’s proposed 20% cut.
It wants to create an independent higher education productivity and performance commission to ensure graduates meet the needs of the future economy.
Labor also plans to increase the number of students completing their study by 20,000 graduates a year from 2020.
The government contributes about $10,000 to the cost of degrees such as maths and education. The Greens proposal to reverse the 20% cut and add a further 10% per student, would be worth about $3,000 per student.
The government contribution is much higher for medicine and agriculture ($21,500) but much lower for law, accounting, commerce and economics (about $2,000).
In the 2016 budget the Coalition shelved plans to deregulated university fees and delayed a 20% cut to per-student subsidies until 2018.
The Coalition has delayed the controversial changes in favour of a discussion paper which includes a wider range of options for higher education policy.
The 20% cut in student subsidies remains an option in the discussion paper, along with an alternative proposal for a “small reduction” in student subsidies with a “small increase” in maximum capped student contribution which universities could charge.
Australian universities have criticised the lack of certainty over how the sector will be funded into the future.
On Monday the education minister, Simon Birmingham, said “full fee deregulation is off the table” and the government would fix fees for 80% of courses. The government is considering allowing universities to set their own fees in up to 20% of “flagship courses”, he said.
“We’re committed to higher education reform based on principles of equity and excellence.”
Labor’s higher education spokesman, Kim Carr, said: “The Turnbull government will deregulate university fees – their policy paper clearly says so – $100,000 degrees became more of a certainty on budget night, not less.”
“Only Labor has a plan to properly fund universities over the coming decade and avoid the unfair and unnecessary imposition on students of soaring fees and debt.”
Simms said: “The Greens are the only party with the courage to substantially boost investment in universities to help establish a sustainable sector that provides affordable, high-quality education.”
“We’re constantly hearing the argument from the government that students need to carry the burden for their chronic under-funding of the university sector, but this is simply untrue and unfair. Investment in higher education is in the public good,” he said.
“Increasing the base level of funding is critical to help universities deliver high-quality courses without student fees skyrocketing to record highs.”
