In October 2020, Tasmanian Senator Jacqui Lambie took to the floor of the senate to slam the Coalition’s proposed university fee hikes. The changes, she said, would make ‘university life harder for poor kids and poor parents’.
‘I refuse to be the vote that tells poor kids out there … no matter how gifted, no matter how determined you are, might as well dream a little cheaper, because you're never going to make it, because you can't afford it.’ (This quote is now immortalised on T-shirts through the Jacqui Lambie Network).
The senate ended up passing the fee rises and a few months later the Morrison government introduced the Job Ready Skills Package. As part of the policy, fees for some degrees such as teaching and nursing dropped to encourage prospective students to enter fields where there was a high demand for workers. Costs for mathematics fell by 59 per cent.
However, student contribution fees for communications, humanities, and society and culture degrees rose by up to 113 per cent. They became as expensive as law degrees, despite law graduates having the capacity to earn more than humanities graduates. These changes overturned more than two decades of fees reflecting graduates’ expected earning potential in the workforce.
We now have a Labor government, but there is no indication that the government will reduce fees for the humanities and other fields of study or return to the idea that students be charged university fees according to their potential earnings. The Albanese government’s continuation of the current fee structure is reflected in education department’s recently released university fees for 2025. Arts students will pay a contribution of almost $17,000 a year. This equates to about $51,000 for a typical three-years arts degree which includes history and politics subjects.
Information on how much students are paying for individual subjects is available on university websites, and it makes for interesting reading. Each history subject at Australian universities costs $2040 as do media and journalism subjects. The $2040 figure is the highest amount that can be charged for a subject. Law subjects attract the same fee. However, subjects in agriculture, education, clinical psychology, English, mathematics, statistics, nursing, Indigenous language or foreign language each cost $555, the lowest amount that can be charged.
The differences in the way fees are charged for domestic undergraduate students has produced some glaring results. The University of Melbourne, for example, offers 22 Indigenous subjects such as Aboriginal Writing, Indigenous Treaties and Titles and Aboriginal Women: Activism and Leadership, which come under the umbrella of humanities/society and culture. As a result, these subjects cost $2040 each, despite a push for students to learn more about Aboriginal history, issues and culture.
Arts students can reduce their overall debt if they study a language, which includes English. Each language subject costs $555. However, many students are unable to study languages at their university because higher education institutions have dropped many over the past decade. Swinburne University has discontinued teaching Japanese, Chinese and Italian, while La Trobe University has dropped Indonesian. Other languages to face the axe around the country include German and Modern Greek.
'Universities also know that it’s important for students to take subjects outside their fields of studies to broaden their horizons. This is the reason many universities now require undergraduates to take electives, many of which are in the humanities and society and culture fields. This recognises the importance of humanities subjects, particularly for those doing engineering and mathematics.'
Professor George Williams, the new vice-chancellor of Western Sydney University, has echoed Jacqui Lambie’s lament that the hike in fees for the humanities would price out poorer students. In a speech last month (July 24) to the Parramatta Chamber of Commerce, he said:
‘Now, Arts degrees are usually the degree of choice for Indigenous students and low SES students. It's about to hit $50,000, and those students are increasingly turning away from a university education. Turning away from their dreams for a better life. And they’re doing so in ways that are dramatically affecting their potential and their ability to realise their aspirations.’
The university has the largest number of low SES students in Australia and the largest number of non-English speaking students. Two-thirds of students are the first in their family to go to university and many students are first in their families to finish high school.
But it appears that students are not turning away from humanities degrees, with figures from admissions centres showing that these degrees are still popular. There might be a reason for this. The first bunch of humanities students are now graduating under the new fee structure. Once more humanities graduate and make it known how more they are paying for their degrees, students may start to turn away from them.
If that’s the case, then students will not study what they want to or not study at all. Imagine being a passionate history student from a disadvantaged socio-economic background saddled with paying the highest fee for history subjects. The student doesn’t do history and doesn’t go into agriculture, nursing or teaching. You cannot make students do degrees they don’t want to.
Universities also know that it’s important for students to take subjects outside their fields of studies to broaden their horizons. This is the reason many universities now require undergraduates to take electives, many of which are in the humanities and society and culture fields. This recognises the importance of humanities subjects, particularly for those doing engineering and mathematics.
This also recognises how vital the humanities and media subjects are in getting students to work out and analyse falsehoods they see online and on social media. It also acknowledges the importance of history. How can we understand conflict in the Middle East without examining the region’s history?
Ten years ago, an arts degree cost about $17,600. Today it’s about $50,000. We have ended up with an inequitable fee structure that places a much higher debt burden on students who want to follow their dreams.
Dr Erica Cervini is a freelance journalist and sessional academic.