Close Menu
Honi Soit
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
    Trending
    • UTS elects new Chancellor
    • Out of the Deep: The Story of a Shark Kid Who Dared to Question Fear
    • Prima Facie: Losing faith in a system you truly believed in
    • Jason Clare seeks replacement for ANU Chancellor Julie Bishop after $790,000 expense report
    • ‘If you silence someone or shush someone, you can get out’: SISTREN is an unabashed celebration of black and trans joy. Is Australia ready?
    • Mark Gowing waxes lyrical on aesthetics, time, language, and his new exhibition ‘This one is a song’
    • NTEU wins wage theft case against Monash University
    • Turning Kindness Into Strength in ‘A Different Kind of Power’
    • About
    • Print Edition
    • Student Journalism Conference 2025
    • Writing Comp
    • Advertise
    • Locations
    • Contact
    Facebook Instagram X (Twitter) TikTok
    Honi SoitHoni Soit
    Thursday, July 10
    • News
    • Analysis
    • Culture
    • Opinion
    • University
    • Features
    • Perspective
    • Investigation
    • Reviews
    • Comedy
    • Student Journalism Conference 2025
    Honi Soit
    Home»Opinion

    Face-off: Should tertiary education be free?

    Two reporters go head to head on a topical issue
    By Grace Franki and Tilini RajapaksaOctober 1, 2017 Opinion 5 Mins Read
    Share
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Email

    Grace Franki argues ‘for’:

    Before Whitlam abolished university fees in 1974 he said, “we believe that a student’s merit, rather than a parent’s wealth, should decide who should benefit from the community’s vast financial commitment to tertiary education.”

    This principle of equality is at the heart of the case for free tertiary education and operates on two levels. First, everyone should be equally able to access tertiary education, regardless of their wealth or background. Free tertiary education is the only way to ensure this. Opponents may point to the existence of HECS schemes as a means to ensure everyone can access university. However, the prospect of a debt in the tens of thousands is a significant disincentive to many underprivileged students who are also sacrificing years of lost potential income in order to study. Secondly, education is the most powerful equalising force in society. A university education enables students to radically change the financial situation of their upbringing and allows a unique level of social mobility. Importantly, these benefits accrue the most to students from low-SES backgrounds — those who are least likely to attend university under a paid model.

    Additionally, free tertiary education is particularly important in the context of the Australian workforce which increasingly favours skilled, tertiary educated workers, systematically locking out those who do not fit this description from good careers and well-paying jobs.

    As we exit the mining boom Australia needs to move towards a more intelligent, service-based economy. Education is already one of Australia’s biggest exports and minimising economic barriers will ensure an even more skilled and diverse workforce. In an age of increasing automation, tertiary education equips citizens with generalised skills and qualifications that can be adapted to a changing workforce. Free education is a long-term investment in a stable economy.

    Finally, a more educated population is more likely to understand civic and democratic institutions — to be thoughtful in how they cast their vote during elections and engage in reasoned discussion about political issues. They are also more likely to have a good understanding of issues of social justice and empathy for marginalised groups.

    Today’s political leaders are the product of free tertiary education in the 1970s and helped shape the subsequent decades of growth which transformed Australia into the modern, egalitarian nation it is today. In a volatile and unpredictable world, young people ought to be afforded the same privilege.


    Tilini Rajapaksa argues ‘against’:

    The push for free tertiary education is commonly based on an erroneous belief that abolishing the HECS system would remove barriers to prospective students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. In fact, abolishing HECS is not only a completely inappropriate way to address socioeconomic disadvantage, but is based on an elitist notion that individuals with academic aptitude inherently deserve expensive benefits at the cost of the remainder of society in an economic system which functions to reward them over those with other skills.

    Currently, taxpayers contribute 59 per cent of the average university course’s cost, while recipients pay the rest once their annual income reaches $55,874. HECS allows students to enter university knowing they won’t have to pay until they are in a financial position to do so.

    If fees were abolished, the number of places at public universities would nearly halve, or tertiary education expenditure would have to significantly increase to maintain the current number of places available. The latter option is generally espoused as a worthwhile investment to improve education accessibility for low-SES students.

    Financial background undeniably plays a significant role in university attendance. Researchers at ANU found privately educated students were 24 per cent more likely to enter university than government educated students in 2016. In NSW, this inequality is even more pronounced with private school students receiving 52.4 per cent of university offers in 2017.  However, abolishing HECS would not address this issue, instead conferring a significant financial benefit to an already predominantly affluent group of people at the taxpayer’s expense. To increase equal access into university, funding could instead be allocated towards increasing the quality and consistency of education available to secondary and primary school students, or to provide affordable student housing and low-SES bursaries.

    However, even in a hypothetical system where academic aptitude was the only determinant in university entrance, the principle of meritocracy — rewarding those who display intelligence and effort — is still an unjust basis for abolishing tertiary education fees.

    Tertiary education, unlike schooling, healthcare or welfare, is not readily available to anyone who needs it. It is offered to a select group (approximately 37% of 20 year olds today — a proportion which could be even less if fees were abolished completely as discussed above) whose academic aptitude is largely genetically predestined. It would be deeply unfair to award an expensive subsidy to those who have won the academic aptitude lottery given that academic aptitude combined with their tertiary education will generally lead to more lucrative professions in our capitalist society.

    In our society, free tertiary education is an inappropriate goal that fails to address the socioeconomic barriers of entry to tertiary education and, if achieved, would divert public funding away from services and institutions that benefit the whole of society towards an exclusive minority.

    Free education tertiary

    Keep Reading

    The Conspiracy of Free Will

    Liberal Strongholds now Teal Havens?

    A Debate in the Heat of Elections

    Independents Day: How the Teals Could Win Big at the Next Election

    Artificial academia

    Research With My Own Eyes

    Just In

    UTS elects new Chancellor

    July 8, 2025

    Out of the Deep: The Story of a Shark Kid Who Dared to Question Fear

    July 8, 2025

    Prima Facie: Losing faith in a system you truly believed in

    July 8, 2025

    Jason Clare seeks replacement for ANU Chancellor Julie Bishop after $790,000 expense report

    July 7, 2025
    Editor's Picks

    Part One: The Tale of the Corporate University

    May 28, 2025

    “Thank you Conspiracy!” says Capitalism, as it survives another day

    May 21, 2025

    A meditation on God and the impossible pursuit of answers

    May 14, 2025

    We Will Be Remembered As More Than Administrative Errors

    May 7, 2025
    Facebook Instagram X (Twitter) TikTok

    From the mines

    • News
    • Analysis
    • Higher Education
    • Culture
    • Features
    • Investigation
    • Comedy
    • Editorials
    • Letters
    • Misc

     

    • Opinion
    • Perspective
    • Profiles
    • Reviews
    • Science
    • Social
    • Sport
    • SRC Reports
    • Tech

    Admin

    • About
    • Editors
    • Send an Anonymous Tip
    • Write/Produce/Create For Us
    • Print Edition
    • Locations
    • Archive
    • Advertise in Honi Soit
    • Contact Us

    We acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. The University of Sydney – where we write, publish and distribute Honi Soit – is on the sovereign land of these people. As students and journalists, we recognise our complicity in the ongoing colonisation of Indigenous land. In recognition of our privilege, we vow to not only include, but to prioritise and centre the experiences of Indigenous people, and to be reflective when we fail to be a counterpoint to the racism that plagues the mainstream media.

    © 2025 Honi Soit
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms
    • Accessibility

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.