HECS fee cut no windfall for science, says expert

Macquarie University's decision to waive or reduce Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) fees for some science and technology subjects is likely to have little impact on students' choices about where and what they study, according to a Melbourne expert on education policy.

"Nobody is going to change their entire career path to save a few thousand dollars on their degrees," said Andrew Norton, a Melbourne University-based research fellow with the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS).

Macquarie University's vice-chancellor, Prof Di Yerbury, announced this week that from 2005, it would offer some advanced subjects in biology, chemistry and mathematics subjects free to students with a Universities Admission Index of at least 95, and cut 30 per cent from the cost from related honours courses.

The free subjects, which would normally cost AUD$600 each, would allow students to save about 12.5 per cent of their total HECS bill.

The university's decision follows recent federal senate approval of legislative changes to make the HECS scheme more flexible. The changes allow universities to independently vary their HECS fees within a band that extends from charging nothing, to increasing existing fees by no more than 25 per cent.

Undergraduate science and technology courses attract the maximum Commonwealth grant of $12,300 per student for the university.

The grants -- effectively, subsidies geared to the estimated cost of teaching the courses -- are much lower for high-demand courses, so students accumulate a correspondingly larger HECS debt.

In contrast to science students, law students bring in only $1500 per student -- and HECS fees for law graduates are much higher.

Because the grants are invisible to students, they do not influence which universities or courses individual students choose. But in the wake of the changes to HECS, the generous grants for science students give universities considerable latitude to cut fees for science and technology courses -- but also to increase fees for high-demand courses or subjects.

Yerbury predicted the new flexibility would result in a greater diversity of subject choice within and between universities.

Universities have been working to attract fee-paying foreign undergraduate students, and domestic postgraduates, but not domestic undergraduate students, according to Yerbury.

"I've always thought there is benefit in not having a high or even medium-high HECS for students in science and technology and particularly those students, the very best, who you want to encourage to do the top programs," Yerbury told ABC Radio.

Macquarie University was targeting the cream of science undergraduates by offering advanced courses free to science students with an admission index of 95+. "They will become our future academics, our future industrialists, our future researchers," she said.

On the same ABC Radio program, federal science minister Peter McGauran described Macquarie University's decision not to charge fees on some science and technology courses as "a landmark event". He said higher education reforms introduced by education minister Dr Brendan Nelson were "truly taking effect".

They would mean more funding for the higher education sector, more places, more scholarships and, most importantly, more flexibility and freedom and independence for universities, he said.

CIS's Norton, a former adviser to former federal education minister Rod Kemp, is the author of a book that argues for a market-driven higher education system.

He said Macquarie University stood to reap maximum benefit from the publicity associated with its decision to cut or waive its fees for advanced science and technology subjects; other universities that followed suit would do less well.

"If they have courses which have been struggling, demand-wise it could be a good way of attracting attention to those, and increasing enrolments," he said. "It might influence students who don't want to do any particular degree, to certain universities or subjects, particularly in metropolitan universities that offer greater subject choice."

Norton said the variable grants paid to universities for each enrolled student were based on a costing exercise done more than 15 years ago, which compared the costs of teaching each subject. Although the grants were indexed, they almost certainly did not accurately reflect the costs of teaching the subjects today.