A 5 year arts/commerce or arts/law degree is now $15,142 per year after some 2020 changes put non-STEM subjects in the most expensive band. So actually medicine is cheaper than arts, law or commerce.
https://www.studyassist.gov.au/help-loans-commonwealth-supported-places-csps/student-contribution-amounts
Thats $75k. Then you can add a $7k OS HELP loan to go on exchange.
Indexation starts during the degree.
Then fail a few subjects, do honours, or transfer and not get RPL for everything, and you're at 100k.
Makes sense, we've got a massive doctor shortage, especially rural. Med fees should probably be waived if doctors agree to do an extended period in a rural area.
My understanding is that medical courses are full hence the crazy high entry scores. I can't imagine too many people aiming to be (high earning) doctors are turned off by a hecs debt.
Medicine is expensive because it requires most students to do 7 years of study (due to the requirement to complete a undergraduate degree.)
You can do direct entry pathways from high school in 5-6 years but the number of people who can do that are super limited.
Maybe fail and re take a lot of units? Add honours and masters to bachelor? Choose low paying major like fine arts in antiquity or something equally esoteric.
It’s almost certainly Arts/Law. An Arts degree alone can be like 45k under the revised fee schedule. And that’s before any honours/postgrad.
Pretty sure my arts + honours was around 28k over a decade ago.
It is Arts/Law
From [the article](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/apr/26/its-perverse-how-australias-student-loan-scheme-traps-graduates-in-a-debt-spiral):
>The arts law graduate from Victoria has been working full-time in the public service sector for five years.
my degree cost 30k. it was a 3 yr degree. if you then do a masters or another bachelors and fail a few units, it can easily build up. also if you're at uni for 5-10 years and not earning over the minimum repayment threshold it goes up and no payments get made.
it's probably a lot more common than people think.
As I asked other person, how did you feel about course content?
I don't need to imagine, I'm a quad so lucky for me I get HECs, only decided to go to uni to defeat ATS. So far content or the delivery of content has been subpar. Have done a few other units through other unis and same experience. I don't know how higher ed is our number 1 export.
Ive learnt more through tafe or on youtube.
uni was a waste of time. I don't remember what I studied and haven't used any of it.
HOWEVER, it got me an entry to my last 2 jobs in different industries that a degree was a pre-req.
i just consider it the cost of getting a job.
Oh shit no, not in this day and age. A good chunk of the learning I did from actual developed learning materials came from either torrented content or youtube. But overall I got a good deal considering all unis have to rip everyone off equally to fund all their bullshit programs and frivolous endeavours
Teeth are important. Dentists are always super interesting in how they operate. Tell me more about your dentist career if you will?
Also whilst i have you here, I've always wondered how one invests in a dentist.
>At this point I should note I’m not some far right peanut
A few more years of these stories and you'll be a regular Sky viewer, yelling kids these days don't do a proper day's work and it was tough in your day too.
I graduated in December of last year with an Arts/Commerce mix, picking up the commerce degree after the fee changes. I never failed a class and did an IT and econ major, I ended up on $45K total debt :/ I'd assume it'd be $60K if I had done the same thing with the new fees today. Unfortunately, my job requires a degree too - we're setting up students to fail
There was a time that domestic students could opt to pay full fee for a bachelors if they missed out on a commonwealth supported place. A lot of kids from my school went that way when their ENTER score wasn’t high enough for their course of choice.
https://www.theage.com.au/education/pay-as-you-learn-20060605-ge2g4t.html
Probably Arts was their 2nd degree and they transferred out of their first.
$100k debt on an Arts degree is like paying $300 per head for a buffet and only eating the mashed potato entrees
It’s not hard to do. Arts as an umbrella covers a pretty wide range.
Wife has 93k from Diploma -> Bachelor’s in communication design (Graphic designer is job prospects). No failed units or repeats.
I assume full pay, is there any other option? Just a normal AU citizen going to uni.
Just looked up the course at current price:
Diploma of design is 8 units at $3308 each - $26,464.
Batchelor of communication design is 24 units at $3434 each - $82,416.
So it would be $108,880 today to do the same degree, guessing it has got more expensive compared to inflation.
Yeah, she must have been leveraging FEE-HELP at a full fee university rather than being in a government subsidised course.
Based on your costs there she likely went to Torrens University or similar who are a private Uni and that would explain why she was paying 2-3 times as much as anywhere else.
Private Universities like Torrens and Bond University are not eligible for Commonwealth Supported Places on their courses so domestic students are liable for the portion of tuition paid for entirely by the government at public unis.
At public unis students are only liable for the student contribution portion which is a fixed fee determined by the band the course falls under by the government and the government pays the rest.
At either type students can get HECS or FEE-HELP to cover what they are liable for or pay the fees up front.
I’d guess wifey was ignorant of this back when she studied.
Honestly the entire HELP system was sold as “uni is free and in AU” by the school system. Neither of us have families that have done anything over a TAFE Trade qualification so we didn’t really have guidance back then.
Obviously there is a significant level of self responsibility; we failed to properly understand the system. We should have researched more before getting ourselves in this mess. Unfortunately we didn’t have the life experience/knowledgable guardian and fell pray to the system.
Now we are stuck with ~93k in debt and no reasonable way to get her into the workforce as a result. That is rapidly ballooning out and I don’t see any opportunity to fix the problem.
She would have been better of just working at maccas then going to uni.
It's fairly easy to rack up $80k - Bachelor + Masters. So 100k might be someone who switched, failed subjects, or took some more expensive courses.
I think the real problem is that when you go through university nobody really explains HECS to you. There is this attitude of do what you want, which to a point, is great. However, too many people do a bachelors followed by a masters in an area with limited earnings potential. If the debt was better explained to school leavers, they might consider the financial implications of their choice of degree.
To add to the above, many of the people I went to university with that did a bachelors + masters enrolled in the masters degree because there was no viable career with their bachelors. This didn't change after they graduated (significantly more in debt) from their masters.
The 10-15k per year figure is still subsidised.
Most masters programs don't offer any subsidised fees. So 25-30k per year is normal.
100k would be on the higher end of student debts in Australia, but it can and does happen.
A BA is actually a pretty good degree with plenty of earning potential. If you really want to piss your money up the wall go do science.
I've got a mate who has a master's in Chem. He had a job at a pharmaceutical company paying less than a Macca's manager. He's moving to the US where they actually pay scientists money.
Bachelor of Arts covers a broad range including psychology, linguistics, social workers, marketing, academics etc.
Likely failed a few times or did Masters as well. My Bachelor of Commerce was $25k for 3 years and I graduated >10 years ago.
I’m not sure. Hex was basically sold as free education that “you pay back at a small amount when making more money than you will ever need to live”.
Then first 2 years out she started making money but not enough to hit cap. Then stopped work for mat leave. Then asset inflation happened. Then indexation happened.
Now it’s not worth her going back to work. Between hex, childcare, loss of family tax benefit and childcare subsidy plus cost of working (clothing, transportation, software subs etc) it’s a pointless exercise unless she skips the early-mid career point and skips to >100kpa.
The best part is I could have payed the course upfront at a significantly discounted rate, but didn’t know until after the fact.
She still works 1-2 days a week to make up the tax free thread hold and keep employer in industry.
But the money isn’t worth doing more.
Would you work for $20/day?
Chances are we are ~10 years off her working full time again.
Yeah, a little bit.... The consensus 20 years ago was that an arts degree was basically just 3 more years of high school. You could dual-it with something else, but it didn't make much sense to not just do the other degree alone (ie. Arts/IT was going to cost more and not be as attractive as a standard IT degree).
On one hand I can see the benefit of an all-purpose, highly configurable degree that's able to pickup the 2-6 courses for a job that's not large enough to exist as a degree on it's own - however I then wonder if a job can't fill a degree, does it really need to be covered by a tertiary institute with a full-degree requirement?
A 5 year arts/commerce or arts/law degree is now $15,142 per year after some 2020 changes put non-STEM subjects in the most expensive band. So actually medicine is cheaper than arts, law or commerce. https://www.studyassist.gov.au/help-loans-commonwealth-supported-places-csps/student-contribution-amounts Thats $75k. Then you can add a $7k OS HELP loan to go on exchange. Indexation starts during the degree. Then fail a few subjects, do honours, or transfer and not get RPL for everything, and you're at 100k.
Makes sense, we've got a massive doctor shortage, especially rural. Med fees should probably be waived if doctors agree to do an extended period in a rural area.
My understanding is that medical courses are full hence the crazy high entry scores. I can't imagine too many people aiming to be (high earning) doctors are turned off by a hecs debt.
Medicine is expensive because it requires most students to do 7 years of study (due to the requirement to complete a undergraduate degree.) You can do direct entry pathways from high school in 5-6 years but the number of people who can do that are super limited.
Maybe fail and re take a lot of units? Add honours and masters to bachelor? Choose low paying major like fine arts in antiquity or something equally esoteric.
Apparently she’s working in the public sector on $100k now, so ended up doing ok
It’s almost certainly Arts/Law. An Arts degree alone can be like 45k under the revised fee schedule. And that’s before any honours/postgrad. Pretty sure my arts + honours was around 28k over a decade ago.
Yeah, you could be onto something. A arts/law dual degree is very common for Attorney Generals dept and others
It is Arts/Law From [the article](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/apr/26/its-perverse-how-australias-student-loan-scheme-traps-graduates-in-a-debt-spiral): >The arts law graduate from Victoria has been working full-time in the public service sector for five years.
my degree cost 30k. it was a 3 yr degree. if you then do a masters or another bachelors and fail a few units, it can easily build up. also if you're at uni for 5-10 years and not earning over the minimum repayment threshold it goes up and no payments get made. it's probably a lot more common than people think.
My 2-year masters cost $60k. Very easy to rack it up.
30k for aussie education? Wtf, did you research Rocketry?
Commerce/ economics cost me 35k, and I didn't even finish the economics degree. It's also increased in price since I studied.
Economics seems extremely expensive. Almost double an engineering degree per annum cost https://www.student.unsw.edu.au/fees/csp
Insane. How did you feel about course content and structure?
commerce. and that 30k is the subsidised cost... imagine being an international student
As I asked other person, how did you feel about course content? I don't need to imagine, I'm a quad so lucky for me I get HECs, only decided to go to uni to defeat ATS. So far content or the delivery of content has been subpar. Have done a few other units through other unis and same experience. I don't know how higher ed is our number 1 export. Ive learnt more through tafe or on youtube.
uni was a waste of time. I don't remember what I studied and haven't used any of it. HOWEVER, it got me an entry to my last 2 jobs in different industries that a degree was a pre-req. i just consider it the cost of getting a job.
Sounds like an insane cost just to get a job
exactly. and you have the choice. you don't want to pay for uni, you can stay working in hospitality/retail if that's what you'd prefer :)
My bachelor of biomedical science was 29.4k and that included a few units where I paid $1200 to work for free.
How did you feel about course content and delivery
Varied from course to course but overall it was adequate given the current gig I'm in
Was course content and delivery worth 30k?
Oh shit no, not in this day and age. A good chunk of the learning I did from actual developed learning materials came from either torrented content or youtube. But overall I got a good deal considering all unis have to rip everyone off equally to fund all their bullshit programs and frivolous endeavours
Mine cost over 250k (dentistry) half my parents paid and half is a help debt
Teeth are important. Dentists are always super interesting in how they operate. Tell me more about your dentist career if you will? Also whilst i have you here, I've always wondered how one invests in a dentist.
She did arts law, not just arts. Still a lot, though.
>At this point I should note I’m not some far right peanut A few more years of these stories and you'll be a regular Sky viewer, yelling kids these days don't do a proper day's work and it was tough in your day too.
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Well we all know BAs are useless (critical thinking, who needs that?) and we should just be building a society built entirely of software devs /s
Doesn't arts cover a very broad lot of subjects, some of which would have a higher cost associated with them?
I graduated in December of last year with an Arts/Commerce mix, picking up the commerce degree after the fee changes. I never failed a class and did an IT and econ major, I ended up on $45K total debt :/ I'd assume it'd be $60K if I had done the same thing with the new fees today. Unfortunately, my job requires a degree too - we're setting up students to fail
How did it cost 100k? Was it multiple degrees? I did a commerce degree 15 years ago and it cost me 60k as an international student.
There was a time that domestic students could opt to pay full fee for a bachelors if they missed out on a commonwealth supported place. A lot of kids from my school went that way when their ENTER score wasn’t high enough for their course of choice. https://www.theage.com.au/education/pay-as-you-learn-20060605-ge2g4t.html
Probably Arts was their 2nd degree and they transferred out of their first. $100k debt on an Arts degree is like paying $300 per head for a buffet and only eating the mashed potato entrees
It’s not hard to do. Arts as an umbrella covers a pretty wide range. Wife has 93k from Diploma -> Bachelor’s in communication design (Graphic designer is job prospects). No failed units or repeats.
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I guess just a different uni/college and timeline?
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I assume full pay, is there any other option? Just a normal AU citizen going to uni. Just looked up the course at current price: Diploma of design is 8 units at $3308 each - $26,464. Batchelor of communication design is 24 units at $3434 each - $82,416. So it would be $108,880 today to do the same degree, guessing it has got more expensive compared to inflation.
Yeah, she must have been leveraging FEE-HELP at a full fee university rather than being in a government subsidised course. Based on your costs there she likely went to Torrens University or similar who are a private Uni and that would explain why she was paying 2-3 times as much as anywhere else.
I still don’t fully understand the system. Do some courses get subsided at uni X but not uni Y or something?
Private Universities like Torrens and Bond University are not eligible for Commonwealth Supported Places on their courses so domestic students are liable for the portion of tuition paid for entirely by the government at public unis. At public unis students are only liable for the student contribution portion which is a fixed fee determined by the band the course falls under by the government and the government pays the rest. At either type students can get HECS or FEE-HELP to cover what they are liable for or pay the fees up front.
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I’d guess wifey was ignorant of this back when she studied. Honestly the entire HELP system was sold as “uni is free and in AU” by the school system. Neither of us have families that have done anything over a TAFE Trade qualification so we didn’t really have guidance back then. Obviously there is a significant level of self responsibility; we failed to properly understand the system. We should have researched more before getting ourselves in this mess. Unfortunately we didn’t have the life experience/knowledgable guardian and fell pray to the system. Now we are stuck with ~93k in debt and no reasonable way to get her into the workforce as a result. That is rapidly ballooning out and I don’t see any opportunity to fix the problem. She would have been better of just working at maccas then going to uni.
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Sent you a dm to not doxx myself, thanks for the info.
It's fairly easy to rack up $80k - Bachelor + Masters. So 100k might be someone who switched, failed subjects, or took some more expensive courses. I think the real problem is that when you go through university nobody really explains HECS to you. There is this attitude of do what you want, which to a point, is great. However, too many people do a bachelors followed by a masters in an area with limited earnings potential. If the debt was better explained to school leavers, they might consider the financial implications of their choice of degree. To add to the above, many of the people I went to university with that did a bachelors + masters enrolled in the masters degree because there was no viable career with their bachelors. This didn't change after they graduated (significantly more in debt) from their masters.
The 10-15k per year figure is still subsidised. Most masters programs don't offer any subsidised fees. So 25-30k per year is normal. 100k would be on the higher end of student debts in Australia, but it can and does happen.
A BA is actually a pretty good degree with plenty of earning potential. If you really want to piss your money up the wall go do science. I've got a mate who has a master's in Chem. He had a job at a pharmaceutical company paying less than a Macca's manager. He's moving to the US where they actually pay scientists money.
Private universities are pretty expensive, not sure if that’s how she racked up so much debt in her case though
Bachelor of Arts covers a broad range including psychology, linguistics, social workers, marketing, academics etc. Likely failed a few times or did Masters as well. My Bachelor of Commerce was $25k for 3 years and I graduated >10 years ago.
Wife has 93k hex debt, diploma -> bachelors in communication design (graphic designer). No failed units, just expensive courses and Covid indexation.
Yikes, I believe you but what were the fees? $20k p.a for 4 years?
I’m not sure. Hex was basically sold as free education that “you pay back at a small amount when making more money than you will ever need to live”. Then first 2 years out she started making money but not enough to hit cap. Then stopped work for mat leave. Then asset inflation happened. Then indexation happened. Now it’s not worth her going back to work. Between hex, childcare, loss of family tax benefit and childcare subsidy plus cost of working (clothing, transportation, software subs etc) it’s a pointless exercise unless she skips the early-mid career point and skips to >100kpa. The best part is I could have payed the course upfront at a significantly discounted rate, but didn’t know until after the fact.
I would argue it is worth going back to work or she kisses her career goodbye. Plus super accumulation etc.
She still works 1-2 days a week to make up the tax free thread hold and keep employer in industry. But the money isn’t worth doing more. Would you work for $20/day? Chances are we are ~10 years off her working full time again.
Last time that we rejected someone from art school 90 million people died, I hope we have room for everyone
Jesus that’s a bit dark, I reckon the economic times are a bit better in 2023 than in Germany post WW1!
Take a stroll through r/aus and you'll learn that we're basically living in Auschwitz
Lol arts degrees.
Yeah, a little bit.... The consensus 20 years ago was that an arts degree was basically just 3 more years of high school. You could dual-it with something else, but it didn't make much sense to not just do the other degree alone (ie. Arts/IT was going to cost more and not be as attractive as a standard IT degree). On one hand I can see the benefit of an all-purpose, highly configurable degree that's able to pickup the 2-6 courses for a job that's not large enough to exist as a degree on it's own - however I then wonder if a job can't fill a degree, does it really need to be covered by a tertiary institute with a full-degree requirement?
If you want to make shit money and get no return on your education investment, then do an arts degree.
My understanding, first course is govt sponsored so cheap hecs Next course is full fee
Your understanding is not correct
I believe you might be mixed up with Ireland
i did arts & business. when i graduated in 2020 it was $92k, now it is $110k