Why is there such a huge difference in the cost of education for Australian and foreign students?
The Australian tax-payer pays about three quarters of the Australian students’ cost and the student pays the other quarter. There are three bands in our education structure. Law, medicine, dentistry and veterinary science is in the top band, and Australian students pay A$ 6,136 per year for this band. Then we have science, engineering, computing, commerce, management and economics in Band II and the fees is A $ 5242, in the next band comes nursing, arts, humanities and social sciences for which the fee is A$ 3680 per year for Australian students. Some 10 to 20 years ago even higher education in Australia was totally free, right… When I went to the University it was all free, but in 1988, the then government in Australia amalgamated policies on advanced education… they were not polytechnics but teachers colleges, liberal arts colleges they amalgamated these colleges with the then universities to create a mass system of higher education. And with it came the realisation that the tax-
