Professor Bruce Chapman, Emeritus Professor of Economics at the Australian National University, will Address the National Press Club of Australia on "HECS isn’t broken, but it needs urgent attention".
The Higher Education Contribution Scheme is a university financing system introduced in Australia to facilitate the reintroduction of tuition fees in 1989. It is seen to be innovative and fair, requiring former students to repay debts only when they received sufficient incomes in the future. University enrolments expanded considerably with the additional funds, and the policy has been copied in many countries. Yet over the last few years significant problems have emerged with inequitable prices by course of study, excessive levels of debts, and unfair subsidies going to universities for post-graduate courses and to private universities. The talk will explain the current situation and offer equitable solutions to the significant difficulties that now characterise the system.
BIO:
Bruce Chapman is Emeritus Professor of economics at the Australian National University. He has a PhD in economics from Yale University and has had published over 400 articles and several books on labour market and education economics. He helped design the Higher Education Contribution Scheme that was implemented in Australia in 1989, the world's first income-contingent university financing scheme. It has been adopted in various forms in about 10 other countries, mostly with his advice to governments. He was an economic advisor to Prime Minister Paul Keating in 1994-96 and has applied the basic principles of HECS to a significant range of social and economic policy areas.
