Claw back excess charges

The architect of Australian tuition fees suggests how to break a political deadlock.

Any Australian university that sharply raises its tuition fees should see its government subsidies slashed, according to Bruce Chapman of the Australian National University. Chapman, a professor of economics who is widely seen as the architect of the Australian student loans system, claims that such a move would limit the extent of price rises in a deregulated system.

The Higher Education and Research Reform Bill 2014—which proposes to allow universities to set unlimited tuition fees—is currently the subject of two Senate inquiries. In his submission to the investigations, Chapman warns that there are several reasons for believing that full fee deregulation would potentially lead to “very high course prices (and thus debt) for students in some–perhaps many–areas of higher education.” Clawing back an increasing proportion of any prices set over a certain limit would help keep prices down.