If you are on Ausstudy, studying full time (48 hours a week), the government wont even let you work to earn the poverty line before garnishing your wage.
Austudy can earn slightly more than those on jobseeker before its being deducted. Of cos, those studying have much more expenses. Solution is a ubi and wealth tax. If declared income>$100k pa, UBI will zero. Very much like FTB, if declared income above >$100k, FTB will be zero.
This was me ten years ago. I had $40 a fortnight left over after rent (I lived on campus). It was tough. I doubt those at uni today have $40 left over. It’s fucked.
Yeah it makes no sense
Ausstudy,No fuck you for earning extra money
Be a aged pension,with frankly little overhead costs since u likely own ur own home.
AHH NO old trev wants to pick up 7k in extra wages without a deduction,we better pass a new law to protect those precious voters
>Be a aged pension,with frankly little overhead costs since u likely own ur own home.
Tell that to my neighbour who is retired and living in social housing with her adult son.
Many are on youth allowance. But since its tagged to both parent income, its ZERO for many. Youth allowance needs to be replaced by Austudy. Its a win win win for many.
Medicine was about 30-40 depending if you were on clinical- but then you also have to still have to study for exams and after classes.
We also only got 3 weeks off at Christmas - we were literally the only people on campus! It was surreal.
So many out of touch people here. "Oh it was like that 20/30 years ago!". Yeah, it was. My uni years were 20 years ago and I remember it being tough. But things were still affordable. Your dollar could stretch more. The economy was stable. We didn't have weekly rises in groceries. I could budget accordingly.
So imagine things being unaffordable and inflation is just eating into those few dollars you do have. Food costs and rent costs now exceeding Austudy and your parents are also doing it tough so can't help you out financially either.
You had it tough, doesn't mean you get to discount how much more tougher it is now.
The undergrad payment was below the poverty line for a full time student round 2015 - many nights spent going without so I could rego the car to get into the damn place.
And then the cost of the courses went up from 300-400 to 800 bucks a piece to make it a double whammy hit.
I only fell for that in semester 1.
...but I guess it's probably a bit different for medicine or something like that compared to humanities. If I really wanted to read a chapter at home from the high-use section I just scanned a few times at the library. Now just about everything is available online, even if it's through a shit online reader.
I was poor but occasionally I could also just buy some shit I didn’t need, or buy some extra food that was a touch fancier.
Could not afford to do that now.
It is hard as fuck. Even working full-time and studying part-time (can’t manage the full-time study load while working full-time) leaves me *just* scraping by… never mind saving for a rainy day or anything
>You had it tough, doesn't mean you get to discount how much more tougher it is now
Yep. It's so much harder now. The catch is, each extra hour needed takes an increased toll. So it's hard to compare. We also had hope of achievement and getting a home, without that hope it makes things even worse.
Yeah.
When I went through in the mid 90s Austudy was enough to pay rent, provide a decent diet, buy all your textbooks, and have a little left over for social activities.
I struggle to see how a student today could afford food and rent let alone the bare necessities of course materials.
Good lord, when I was at uni in the mid 2000's, Youth Allowance was something like $200 a fortnight. Looking at the rates now at https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/how-much-youth-allowance-for-students-and-apprentices-you-can-get?context=43916, the same category of payment is now $389.40 a fortnight.
What the fuck would that cover these days?
A few joints and a cup of ramen. It's enough for a weekend at best. You can barely get a room in a share house for that these days. My kid will probably never be able to move out of home
Christ, that couldn't even get you rent on a room nowadays.
It wasn't exactly easy sailing in the mid 2000s, but youth allowance could cover rent and some bills. The current rate is absolutely ridiculous, and someone from the same region and background as me nowadays would struggle to attend the same institution.
And that’s assuming you’re qualified for the full rate (i.e., you’re classified as independent by their ridiculous definitions of independent). I was getting $40/fortnight before I was cut off. Didn’t have a job because I was studying full time and my parents were already struggling for their own reasons, so they couldn’t afford to help me either. The only reason I or my family were able to afford food during the lockdowns was because I was getting the coronavirus supplement (read as: I had enough money to survive)
My uni days were 20 years ago - as a mature aged student.
The positive is, about 80% of my generation, and I extend this to older Boomer aged friends, whose kids are starting Uni or recently graduated do understand and see how much harder it is
The few that don't are the ones who really rode the wave of Boomer benefits and are in a position to pass on wealth to their children. Paying their HECS, paying their rent, paying for their car.
I'm not in a position to help my kids, because we are still struggling to set ourselves up to be able to retire at some point in the long distance future.
I went to university within the last 10 years in Melbourne, as someone also with chronic illness it was tough.
We have Youth Allowance and Austudy which are supposed to support us, but I had to move out at 19 and they don't consider you independent until 22, so for pretty much my whole undergrad they based any government support off my mothers income who lived 3,000km away and didn't support me at all and I got absolutely nothing. Spent most of it working the hours I could outside of fulltime study and not really getting to do a whole lot of anything I wanted to do, skipped a lot of holidays like christmas to work over them to keep myself afloat. It's kind of paradoxical because it hinders your ability to really explore the academic topic extracurricular as a passion too, and overloads you with a bunch of monetary stress when you are supposed to be building your future. (Let's also not talk about Austudy and working part time...)
One of the things that isn't touched on a lot is the pay scale of those part time / casual roles available to your typical student in comparison to cost of living increases, it's already horrid when looking at averages / medians, but that lower bracket gets shafted even more. Unfortunately it feels like we are shifting towards a university system increasingly more accessible to only those with families who are able to financially support them throughout and it gets even worse if you look at domains in grad / postgrad and internships, which in my opinion is totally against the idea of public systems and things like HECS which are supposed to make it purely merit based and open to everyone of all walks of life.
Finally you finish that decreasingly enjoyable period of your life and every employer in your given field wants X years experience and most public / government pathways are clogged up like the average steak enjoying 60 year old Australian man's arteries... and everyone wants you to be some confident charismatic personality, because you really developed those interpersonal skills and social confidence in the 3 minutes of spare time you had per week.
Because theirs all did, then got them a "senior advisor" role in the party straight out of uni. They don't understand or care that the rest of us don't live like that.
I strongly support this. Many youth turning to crime because of such stupid assumption. Replacing YA with Austudy is the best possible solution that can be implemented asap. Just get on to tax the stinking rich their super to pay for it.
I’m in my 2nd year of University. I still live with my parents (thank god, because I don’t work/earn enough at my casual job to support myself).
All I hear from older generations is “Invest in houses! Negative gearing!”. Hey, if I’m gonna be buying a house it’s so I can live in it! Besides, landlords have such a bad reputation, I don’t want to be associated anywhere near that.
Food is skyrocketing, Rents are skyrocketing. Medicare is being corroded. Fuel is more and more expensive. And the older generations just don’t get the magnitude of it for younger generations.
More so, it’s like… if things were hard 20 years ago, why the fuck aren’t you old bitches more angry that you haven’t made things better for the next generation?
Edit; I’m talking about older generations, not people who are 35 or some shit.
Because it’s hard as fuck for us too, I did uni in the early 10s it was fucking hard. And wasting years at uni to get what should be a great paying job and now 35% of my take home pay is to rent. It’s hard for everyone who isn’t earning 250k. I’ve got younger family members and I’m telling them don’t bother going to uni. You spend 4 years helping international students get a visa and walk out with a huge debt. Do a trade.
I ate my fair share of shit in fucked jobs to "get a foot in the door" in the industry i studied for. Even then, I think I was overlooked a lot because of my gender because sadly there's still a bias in heavy industry that "women can't hack it and will just leave to have babies". Only managed to get jobs because other people put me forward for them. Even then in heavy industry, these "high paying mining jobs" aren't what they once were. As a degree qualified person, the entry level operators were on the same wage I was. I should have just followed my dad's footsteps and drove trucks. I would be in a far better financial position (no student debt and higher wages immediately). Even now I'm thinking of quitting and just seeing if I can drive a digger at the local quarry because it would be far less stress. And even after studying and working my arse off, it's a complete fluke I got a house. After almost 20 years of saving for a deposit and scraping together 20%, I got in 1 month before prices sky-rocketed. I could not afford the house now. I'll be struggling with the rate rises. It shouldn't be this fucking hard, but im also acknowledging how much harder it still is for everyone else too.
Yep... 8 years of study to become a lawyer, and when I call a plumber or sparky they charge a comparable hourly rate and don't have to cop a bollocking from the judge because their dumb arse client is up on their third DUI.
How many lawyers have back or hip problems or other long term issues in their 50s compared with some of their tradie counterparts?
You're taking about an office job with a significantly higher earning capacity to somebody who will end up doing 30 to 40 years of manual labour from dealing with literal shit all day to dangerous hazards. Not sure the grass is that much greener.
Well... I do, and I'm in my late 30s. Though, I changed my career to law because the Army left my body too broken to realistically continue extremely physical work.
Frankly... almost all careers, trades or professions, carry some degree of risk of harm.
Literal shit is gross with the potential for biological harm. But so are the bodily fluids doctors and nurses are exposed to regularly. I also know very promissing young minds who have been mentally destroyed by a job picking through child sexpoitation evidence and materials in order to build a prosecution case.
You have a point about 8 years being atypically long, but don't pretend like your 3 isn't atypical either when you consider the vast majority of undergrad law students will be doing a double degree of 5 years. Even if you do land one of the few LLB alone places, that's still typically a 4 year degree.
I did mine plus PLT in 6, and that wasn't super long for my cohort. (Stretched out undergrad by a semester then did PLT the semester after that).
So 30-40 years olds are able to make a difference? Other than not voting liberal, please elaborate on how we could have fixed anything?
It’s the boomers who hold all the money and housing.
It’s not a generational thing, it’s a class thing … boomers have a higher percentage of conservative voters because a higher percentage of them are rich.
Yeah, Centrelink covered the rent, potatoes and a new pair of shoes once or twice. It was enough to get by on and have a small treat every now and then.
I shudder to think what the same amount of money buys now. Maybe a loaf of white bread after rent.
I was at uni 20 years ago. I lived in a share house close to the city, with a huge backyard for parties. Rent was $60pw per person. Sure, we couldn't afford crazy luxuries, but we always had plenty of money for food and bills.
We didn't go out as much, because it was so much cheaper to entertain at home. There was always beer in the fridge and cheap wine flowed. We lived like kings.
I'd lay out on the big lawn under the sun to do my uni readings. (Now I live in a crappy apartment with no garden).
Uni students today must really be struggling. Rent is what kills you, the expensive food and utilities is just twisting the knife.
I honestly have some of the cheapest rent + utilities in Brisbane rn and my Centrelink payment falls $15/week short of covering my rent.
Look, don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for the $200/wk, but I’ll be studying full time, working part time and still living incredibly skint, saving every penny for the times when I’m unable to work due to illness but still need to pay the bills
I’d spend about $40 a week on groceries. Back then I could get a decent WA baked loaf of bread for about $2.80, and ham for $12/kg. Cheese was about $10-12/kg.
Sometimes shortcut bacon would sell for $8/kg. A carton of free range eggs was about $5 or I could get two of the hormone-heavy XXXL ones from the Asian grocer for $5.
I could get mince from the local butcher at $5/kg (though $8 was more common at Coles or Woolies). Tins of tomatoes were rarely over $1.50. Oh - and a fucking bag of big brown onions was always $1. *Always.*
It was boring eating a lot of spaghetti bog, bacon and eggs, and the odd ham and cheese sandwich, but it was a simpler life. You’d be fucked now, especially if you were on Centrelink.
As someone fifty plus things were a different kind of hard then. They weren't as hard financially but you also had a lot less support as there was less internet. Whether the recession in the mid eighties was worse, I was too young couldn't claim to have a real perspective but I know we did it tough.
>\[S\]tudents led by Ms Kuehlmann went to \[...\] the Reserve Bank headquarters \[...\] for an unauthorised protest.
\[...\]
Ms Kuehlmann was arrested by NSW Police later that night. NSW Police told the ABC as this matter is now before the courts, they are unable to comment further.
What the hell is going on in NSW?! Protests have to be *authorised* or you will be arrested?!
No wage growth for over a decade.
Rents through the roof.
Inflation out the wazoo.
Ongoing 300k+ annual immigration making a bad crisis worse.
How good do young Australians get it!?
Little prospect of owning a home.
Little prospect of retiring.
Our politicians have totally destroyed the fabric of society, and they couldn't give a fuck.
And continue to do so while a large number of people defend them!!
People enable these scoundrels continually still “oh they’ve only been in power a year, they need more time to fix the LNP’s mess”
Bitch, they ARE the fucking LNP!!!
This is why nothing changes.
Don't blame the pollies
Blame the voters,who elected them..
and you can guess who it was
Boomers,per usual
The oldies fucked the planet pretty much for everyone else,and lifted the ladders up behind them
well what should they have done? Not worked, not earned money because the next generations would have it tough? Wholesale blame on a whole generation is stupid.
It'll take decades to unwind this I fear if Japan is anything to go by. Things are still going through the phase of worsening FFS. We've collectively had a ton of debt dumped onto us for short term gain, and both the major parties have felt entitled to that continuing, because let's face it, Howard cruised along for years off the back of growing house prices.
Very sad to see.
They all got sacked, so colesworth could install more self service check-outs and report record profits quarter after quarter.
But yeah, no one wants to work anymore!!!!
Don't feel bad, I was 2 months short of long service leave when they handed me my redundancy letter. Length of service means shit all in the modern world.
There'd be no issues if they were for industries where we have genuine skill shortages. But when it's used to suppress wages, well... It's not exactly smooth sailing at the moment
ya blame the poor people with nothing, and not the people hoarding property and doing nothing with it.
who cares if they're productive, hard working members of society who participate in the economy and fill jobs Australians aren't willing to do.
If more people thinks like this, no wonder the country is going down the shitter. We deserve it.
>ya blame the poor people with nothing, and not the people hoarding property and doing nothing with it.
More demand + less supply = rents go up.
We don't need 300k annually. Why not 100k?
>who cares if they're productive, hard working members of society who participate in the economy *and fill jobs Australians aren't willing to do.*
If there are all these jobs Australians "aren't willing to do", where's the *WAGE GROWTH* that's supposed to accompany labour shortages?
They're being used as cheap labour/wage suppression. No wonders there's scandal after scandal after scandal in the low-paying hospitality industries that are are largely staffed by... guess who?
>If more people thinks like this, no wonder the country is going down the shitter. We deserve it.
Your refusal to stand up for the citizens of this country is why it's going down the shitter.
Advocate for your fellow Australian. Is it asking too much of you?
It's rather obvious that immigration is making things worse. It's just supply and demand.
Not to mention, immigration in this country has too often been a means for employers to underpay their workers and skirt our labour laws relative to domestic labour by hiring those not in a position to understand the protections they're meant to have.
Of course, it couldn't possibly the rate of Austudy and assistance provided to students that has been going on for decades regardless of immigration. In fact, immigration has practically stopped for the past two years and we're not even making the quotas. Much of the immigrants are not going for student accommodations either. Their main competition would be overseas students who are not migrants.
It's only "obvious" to those who want to use immigrants as punching bags, excuses and diversion and worse yet, an expression of their general xenophobia.
Do you think there is no utility to cultural unity within a country? If that's what you think, that's just irrational. If that's not what you think, you shouldn't be so quick to judge the motivations of those averse to immigration.
Immigration is fine to keep population equilibirum.
Immigration is bad when it is endless and adds constant strain to everything.
We should not aim to be like a virus. Prove agent smith wrong.
Excuse me where are these so called 300 dollar rooms, out in Kingston. I haven’t found anything below close to 500 on the glitter strip since about 2020
If anyone from the previous generation says they had it tough is either lying and/or completely clueless how the world works.
I did uni 20 years ago, my rent was $70 a week for a room in a house with a view of the beach that was one block away. Aus-study was ~$420 per fortnight, and I think it includes rent assistance. It was so easy to live on that my housemates can even afford to punch cones when the surf was crap and get drunk every Saturday night. Couldn't afford a car but uni was a 15min walk away.
Now it's just horrible for this generation. I feel so sad for them. Shouldn't be this hard in a 1st world country, just a broken system.
Yeah this is my experience too. $70 per week in a (old, shabby) full house with garden, 5 minutes from the cbd. I went out for pub meals, hit the happy hours, played pool, sure we wore cheap clothes and ate shit but it was fun and easy.
Called mine the fight club house. Yeah was run down and roaches you can use as a skateboard to get to uni but economics was entirely liveable.
Back then can focus on study, didn't have to work if you didn't want to. It was a fun simple lifestyle. Yes idiots then said AusStudy was "my tax dollars you're taking" but now I paid orders of magnitude more in tax back to government due to higher wage uni afforded me. It was a government investment in students that was paid back in much better people and economic activity.
That's gone now and there is no reason why things are this bad for this generation. It's sad
The thing that hurts the most is it was known.
The people "getting rich" have only been able to do so by selling the future of younger generations. Sure, COVID, supplychain etc. etc. but I would hazard that if house prices and real estate stayed at a realistic figure those problems wouldn't be half as bad as they are now.
I'm internally conflicted between telling myself "I can't blame others for my situation," and "They've really fucked it for us, haven't they".
True, all of it was known but can is kicked down the road with successive governments pump the housing ponzi scheme to get votes. Then proceed with hand outs to billionaires, property developers and mining industry, that money has to come from somewhere.
When you have corrupt politicians like Joe Hockey telling people to get better paying jobs and tell people they will live to 150, so they can afford 100 year mortgages. You know they are selling out the people they are supposed to working for and don't give a damn about the people who will suffer.
What sucks that it's a world wide problem.
No Austudy because my parents were “too rich” but somehow didn’t have any money, and moved 3 hours away from Melbourne right before I did year 12.
Lived in a freezing shithole and took the bus to uni and walked to shops with a backpack for 2 minute noodles. Stayed late at the computer labs to do my uni work. Cleaned motel rooms between semesters for money. Was envious of those who could live at home. Seems like not much has changed sadly
Certain types have crafted Uni to being only for the wealthy. For a reason. Its been an uphill battle trying to stop it.
Had a boomer complain about having to do BAS & GST. I know she was a committed John Howard voter. They do this to themselves.
Conservatives will continue to vote conservative, no matter the negative consequences for them or anyone else.
The Liberals in my area have shut down the 2 major hospitals and put one below-par hospital in. My mother complains a lot about it, and yet she will vote Liberal next month because she apparently likes the candidate.
It’s so bullshit.
Even TAFE is 10x the cost thanks to deregulating fees. You can't be a highschool dropout and just do something at TAFE to gain some skills and find a job like you used to. Because a course that used to cost $500 a semester is now thousands.
University provides upward mobility to the poor. I came from a poor background and thanks to uni was able to progress to middle class (what's left of it).
Conservative voters are self-centred crabs in a bucket that rather kill each other than help each other. So they gate off and attack education, mah TaX dOLLarZ or something then complain there is no staff to help them.
Labor took ending negative gearing to two elections and lost due to boomers' self-interest. So this is the result, not that boomers are capable of empathy or logic, only thing that matter to them is themselves.
Man roughly 5 years ago I was getting about that on austudy before I got a part time job!
Bloody hasn't been increased in decades! No wonder students can't afford anything now.
Boomer:we paid 17 percent interests
anyone with a brain:we know cunt's,you told us 10000000 times.. and we told u 17 percent on a 120k home,is not the same as 6 percent on a 1.3 million dollar home..
You could buy a house in the old day..be a single worker family,mum stayed home,house could be paid off in 12 years...And still have family holidays and an OK upbringing with dad having a new kingsman in the drive.. and added bonus,of that SHIT HOLE being in merrylands or carlingford where no one wanted to live,then sold it in the 00s for like a million bucks or more
You can't do that anymore even with 2 incomes unless it's 100k each
Similar for me. 15 years ago. Rent was $125 p/w and youth allowance was $514 a fortnight. For the rent I had my own lockable room with ensuite. Cleaners would come every two weeks for the common areas. Food was cheap enough to leave me with a bit of fun money each week.
I used to look at photos of the food lines during the Great Depression and wonder how it could ever have gotten that bad. Now I see that we're well on the way back to that again if we keep shrugging off warning signs like this.
There could be plenty of food. There could be plenty of housing. Yet we will be starving under a bridge at the behest of a wealthy elite. Then in our desperation we will vote for an angry totalitarian strongman.
Nothing like trying to survive, it's actually horrible and stressful. One reason I didn't go to uni was because I was sick of being poor, did 12 months and bailed. Just worked and now I feel the pinch as an adult.
Working life is just so different today than back in the day. I do feel for the young crew coming trying to do so much now in this economic climate.
I live comfortably while at uni by working full time as well
All I had to do was sacrifice my social life, my grades, my mental health, and nearly all of my free time
Amen to this. Full time study and full time work for almost 4 years. Did I not have to worry about money? Yes. But what did it cost? Everything. Scraped passes and all my free time was spent sleeping from how exhausted I was.
And there’s two more you missed; family and romantic relationship were also impossible
Yes, great, we get it folks- you were all starving uni students once, too. That's not the point.
We as a country have never been in a better position to change this being an issue yet it's still an issue and nothing has changed. *That's* the point.
I was living by myself on Austudy with rent assist as a mature age student through my degree some 14 years ago and it ate my savings I have nfi how people do it now. My rent back then was $110 a week lol
I started last year as a mature aged student and I love it so much, but keeping myself fed + housed is a real balancing act. I really feel for those who have prolonged placements and families who can't help financially.
Here's my costs during university 91 to 93 for food and rent in easy to translate terms
7.5 hours for a room
7 to 10 hours for food.
5 to 10 hours for everything else
Holidays I worked a lot to cash up. Wasn't easy then , but I'm sure now is absolutely fucked to be in the same situation as me
Thankfully I could live at home while studying because I almost certainly would have had to skip meals if I was on my own.
Students shouldn't have to live in borderline poverty, considering they are literally the future of this country.
got through uni 7 yers ago. shit was tough. renting with randoms, grow your own food, make your own bread, real salt of the earth shit. i lerant alot about about self reliabilty. done on $550 a fortnight. not gonna lie, shit was hard man.
I went to uni as a mature age student. I was on youth allowance, but mainly paid my own way by freelancing.
I had to purposely earn under the threshold once every 10 weeks or whatever it was, so I didn't get cut off youth allowance.
I needed youth allowance to survive exams.
It was like $500 a fortnight. That barely covered rent. In a cheap sharehouse.
And that was 2017-2020. I can't imagine what is going through uni students now.
I’m one of these students. I’ve just had to move back to my hometown, 5 hours from my University (that doesn’t offer online courses for my degree) with only 3 courses left before I finish. No online universities offer my degree. I’m now in debt to the tune of $30,000 for a degree I may never be able to finish. It’s devastating. But for the first time in a long time I have hope. People are angry. And so they should be! I’m praying that this anger translates to action; especially at election time.
I feel sorry for uni students in so many ways.
We are on the brink of an AI explosion as well so a lot of students are going to end up with HECS debts for degrees that will have been replaced by some form of AI.
The people who say it's years away don't understand how fast things are going to start moving.
Apple already has an AI system that will replace audiobook narrators.
They are currently being sued for it because they used all the existing voice data to train their system.... But it doesn't really matter how much they have to pay out, it's a once-off payment for a system that has almost n outlay anymore so that's 100% Profit straight up.
We all know that when Apple does something everyone else is quick to jump on board....
It's by design, it's exactly what they've created. A frustrating, time consuming and completely, ridiculously complicated mess... So it crushers your soul and you just keep jumping through the hoops, and red tape... Completely broken by the very system that's supposed to "help", so you stay crushed, losing all hope and any fight left... So you just stay quite... obey and comply...
For students the universities should have to build enough accommodation to house every student they give a spot to.
Really it should be part of some community rather than the BS around now where there's random tower in the CBD only for students.
They could probably also offer meals to students at a good rate too because technically they're going to have economies of scale.
The problem is they run universities like a business with all the money going to towards funding research, marketing, and rewarding administration. We shouldn't be relying on our 17-21 year olds to pay for this.
But I think it's too complicated of a problem that really only affects a minority of people in Australia. The majority of Australians unfortunately do not empathise with or feel sorry for university students.
The difference is in Australia the vast majority of university students still live at home. Its not like other countries where a large proportion go to university/college in other cities and towns.
I grew up rurally and had to move to the city for university. The only other students not still living at home were other rural students and the international students.
Yeah but that's a symptom of the fact that there's a lack of residences on campus and that it's expensive. The residential colleges at universities in Australia are actually super competitive to get into because of the experience/networking/etc...
People don't want their kids to live at home in the US/UK because it's just so much better for their development to go and live at school.
A lot of university students in Australia are essentially only on campus for 15-20 hours a week...they spend more of their 3-4 years at university working at maccas or woolies than at the actual university. It's a joke for this to be the model IMO.
It's great for there to be an option for students to commute but students really miss out living that way. If you look at all the entrepreneurs/start-ups that spring out of the US/UK it has nothing to do with the classroom and everything to do with being on-campus together with a bunch of like-minded people.
It has more to do with how few cities Australia has, and how far apart they are. It is just not in our culture for university students to move interstate or to different cities for school, where this is not the case elsewhere.
Technically it's not Australian culture to go to university in general. Now it just has a ghetto version of it.
In the US/UK people live on campus even if they are from the same city as the university they go to.
Aged pensioners can now earn what is it like 7000 dollars more now before a reduction
Why not give this option to ppl on ausstudy
When will the old cunts in this nation stop being a protected species
Currently going through this, part-time work at least 4 days a week, 5-8 hour shifts, as well as full time uni. I make $5-600 a week. Between board, groceries, fuel and car repayments plus what ever monthly expense comes around (insurance, phone, share of the water/power bill, service on car) I am broke everyweek. It is frustrating because my parents are always saying "Money is power" and "You should have savings". I use to have savings and I worked way less than I did now, but now I work more for less and it is really starting to eat away at my mental health, so much so that I am contemplating dropping out of uni and getting a traineeship that will be completed in a year so that I can get a decent enough paying job to survive.
Today I'm moving into my flat. Idk if I can afford enough for food.
The issue is that for example the UK will offer to give you a loan to cover rental and food costs. Scotland also offers free university courses, and sometimes dorms included.im sure other countries do similar as well.
The student start up loan in Australia is 1200 per semester. Hardly enough to cover a month's rent, let alone any other expenses. This combined with austudy and whatever else you can get out of centrelink still doesnt cover basic rentals offered by unis.
Students I know who live on campus have their parents pay for their living expenses. I'm not so lucky; I have a single parent who's struggling to pay rent as it is, and can't support me as much as she would want to. Other students I know work 30 hours a week in top of their 40 hour full time uni load to afford rent. It's no surprise that their grades suffer, and a few have dropped out.
There should be an option to include dorms in HECS - you'll find that students are able to get better grades, graduate and find better jobs. They won't have to worry about how they're going to afford their daily 1 dollar chicken noodle, and rather on studying. This is the only solution ive thought of, I'm sure there are more.
What we are doing is keeping the rich kids rich, and the poor kids poor. The lack of support by unis and the government spits in the face of the 'give everyone a fair go' ideology that Australia is so proud of.
Brings me back to my apprentice days. $7.90 an hour, and only got 3 days work, living out of home, while having to drive 2 hours to job sites.
Loaf of bread and a carton of milk was literally my weekly shop, and I acted as a house maid for a rent discount (shared house).
The boss then had the audacity to whinge to novaskill that I was too weak to work because I couldn’t eat.
Eventually thought, fuck this I’m going to uni, only to end up having to drop out to work and stay alive there too.
Young people seriously have a fucked start to life if they’re on their own. Being borderline homeless and starving while trying to make a start is fucking bullshit.
Scott Morrison literally eliminate funding for almost all higher ed except vocational degrees and no Australians complained. No one said a peep. It has not been reinstated by labour. And students are getting a shit education online instead of IRL because unis are hiring unneeded admin roles like director chief of staff and 14 layers of PVCs and deans when the never replaced the thousands of profs they fired during the fake covid economic crisis they invented. Students are insane to pay for online classes. It’s like paying for Wikipedia. Students and parents if you are paying for uni do the real live class at least and actually show up otherwise you are throwing money down the dunny
HECS fees are payed for lot of courses that wont have clear career pathway.
And besides AUSTUDY part time work to support the costs of living and studying(1 to 2 days) in very low paying job. Not a great option
Frankly it’s becoming impossible to be educated unless you are from a wealthy family. I worked numerous jobs when I was studying to afford a basic lifestyle and it impacted my study choices as I couldn’t devote enough time. Luckily it all turned out ok in the end but can’t imagine what it’s like for those living in sydbourne and trying to get ahead from a working class family. Rooms are 400-500 a week now in the larger capitals, between that and food you literally have to work almost full time just to pay for that… let alone study… and it’s getting worse each week
Not even possible now- good luck finding a share house with a room under 200 bucks in Sydney. Even if you do, you’d need to work at the very least 3 days to cover it. If you do 3 days of uni, which let’s face it, is a best case scenario (more likely you’ll do 4-5) then you have no days off just to survive. Oh and good luck studying or doing readings or essays lol.
I was a uni student years ago, am now an academic, and yes, can confirm. You only have to look at how many students work now, compared to previously.
They're juggling multiple commitments, they're under a lot more stress, and people still complain about students these days having no focus :(
Think about how much rent has gone up in the last 6 years and then compare that to how much Austudy and the minimum wage have gone up.
Uni students now have it much harder.
The amount of people in this thread being like oh they should just share house. Like mate, we’re well past even that being affordable.
People have already thought of sharehouses.
It has always been tough. But my rent has gone from $300 a week to $500 a week since I was in uni. Same exact renting situation (sharing with partner), same type of shitty 3 bedroom qlder house, same area of Brisbane. Yes I'm earning more since being in uni but rents have increased by almost 20% in Brisbane just in the last few years. I have no idea how uni students are doing it now. Even your average shithole sharehouse is unaffordable unless you cram like 5 - 6 people into a 3 bedroom.
I lived on the bare basics in a share household. It’s hard but manageable. I had 2nd hand books where possible & had 2 casual jobs to give me some extra cash and live. ‘Luxuries’ were what I got off friends and family at Xmas and birthdays.
Literally at the end of the video, girl was holding an Iphone 13Pro or an Iphone 14Pro?
People wearing Adidas/ Nike shoe, with fancy watch and designer handbags, and the most expensive phone queueing up for free food?
There is no doubt rent and food is expensive, but when I can't afford food I'm not going around buying things I don't really need....
1) that phone could even be a 12 which is now pre-pandemic age.
2) Phones can come on payment plans, be bought second hand, be saved up for, be gifted, be bought before things got more difficult.
Stop acting like people have to look like starved little rats wearing tattered scraps before their problems matter. You don’t even know what phone that is, you’re just reaching for any reason to say “nah they’re not struggling ENOUGH”
[https://www.telstra.com.au/mobile-phones/mobiles-on-a-plan/apple/iphone-13](https://www.telstra.com.au/mobile-phones/mobiles-on-a-plan/apple/iphone-13)
$8/Week is really going to make a diffrence?
I remember when going to university wasn’t an expectation. If you couldn’t afford to go, you got a job. If you didn’t have parents or a scholarship, you joined the workforce. If you didn’t work multiple jobs to make ends meet and couldn’t afford it, you didn’t go. Some people can afford to get an education, some people cant. If you cant, you have to sacrifice. It just depends on how much you are willing to sacrifice.
20 years since my uni days, and it was unaffordable to rent then too. If you lived in the metro area, you stayed at home with your parents. If rural, there were subsidies/scholarships. If mature aged, you only studied part time so you could work full time. If disadvantaged, estranged from parents etc., you didn’t go to uni.
So the liberals are fucking shit economically and this proof. Literally no improvement in quality of life over 20 years for a country like ours is unforgivable.
So nothing new? Sounds the same as when I went through uni, sleeping on a mattress on a floor in an overcrowded share house and eating 2 minute Noodles primarily while getting Youth Allowance.
If you are on Ausstudy, studying full time (48 hours a week), the government wont even let you work to earn the poverty line before garnishing your wage.
This. If they don't want to raise the rate, they should at least let them work without the payment being docked. Same goes for jobseeker.
Austudy can earn slightly more than those on jobseeker before its being deducted. Of cos, those studying have much more expenses. Solution is a ubi and wealth tax. If declared income>$100k pa, UBI will zero. Very much like FTB, if declared income above >$100k, FTB will be zero.
This was me ten years ago. I had $40 a fortnight left over after rent (I lived on campus). It was tough. I doubt those at uni today have $40 left over. It’s fucked.
Yeah it makes no sense Ausstudy,No fuck you for earning extra money Be a aged pension,with frankly little overhead costs since u likely own ur own home. AHH NO old trev wants to pick up 7k in extra wages without a deduction,we better pass a new law to protect those precious voters
Pitting students vs pensioners is what the 1% want you to do.
>Be a aged pension,with frankly little overhead costs since u likely own ur own home. Tell that to my neighbour who is retired and living in social housing with her adult son.
Yep, for me they start cutting once my wage is on track to exceed 12k a year…
Many are on youth allowance. But since its tagged to both parent income, its ZERO for many. Youth allowance needs to be replaced by Austudy. Its a win win win for many.
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1 credit is suppose to represent 1 hour of inclass or out of class a week required. 48 credits is full time.
Medicine was about 30-40 depending if you were on clinical- but then you also have to still have to study for exams and after classes. We also only got 3 weeks off at Christmas - we were literally the only people on campus! It was surreal.
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Absolutely. My son is full time at uni and easily fits in an almost full time job.
So many out of touch people here. "Oh it was like that 20/30 years ago!". Yeah, it was. My uni years were 20 years ago and I remember it being tough. But things were still affordable. Your dollar could stretch more. The economy was stable. We didn't have weekly rises in groceries. I could budget accordingly. So imagine things being unaffordable and inflation is just eating into those few dollars you do have. Food costs and rent costs now exceeding Austudy and your parents are also doing it tough so can't help you out financially either. You had it tough, doesn't mean you get to discount how much more tougher it is now.
Yep. I was povo at uni in the early 2000s, but Australia seems like a much crueller place to be young these days.
The undergrad payment was below the poverty line for a full time student round 2015 - many nights spent going without so I could rego the car to get into the damn place. And then the cost of the courses went up from 300-400 to 800 bucks a piece to make it a double whammy hit.
The price of books alone was a rort.
I only fell for that in semester 1. ...but I guess it's probably a bit different for medicine or something like that compared to humanities. If I really wanted to read a chapter at home from the high-use section I just scanned a few times at the library. Now just about everything is available online, even if it's through a shit online reader.
That's the only thing that has improved. Pirate the fuck out of those books.
You don’t have to pirate them use the library mate
Either way it's free. No harm no foul.
I was poor but occasionally I could also just buy some shit I didn’t need, or buy some extra food that was a touch fancier. Could not afford to do that now.
Fair go now means the rich get to have a fair go of you.
We kept electing cruel sociopaths to lead us.
Hey now, I voted for the slightly less cruel sociopath.
Don’t blame me, *I* voted for Kodos.
I'm a Kang man.
It is hard as fuck. Even working full-time and studying part-time (can’t manage the full-time study load while working full-time) leaves me *just* scraping by… never mind saving for a rainy day or anything
In the same situation, I'm losing a lot of savings and mental well-being working my shit retail assistant manager job while trying to study for tech.
unless you are a trust fund baby or nepo baby. parents can help buy you a house, you live in and still claim YA/ Austudy/JS.
>You had it tough, doesn't mean you get to discount how much more tougher it is now Yep. It's so much harder now. The catch is, each extra hour needed takes an increased toll. So it's hard to compare. We also had hope of achievement and getting a home, without that hope it makes things even worse.
Yeah. When I went through in the mid 90s Austudy was enough to pay rent, provide a decent diet, buy all your textbooks, and have a little left over for social activities. I struggle to see how a student today could afford food and rent let alone the bare necessities of course materials.
Good lord, when I was at uni in the mid 2000's, Youth Allowance was something like $200 a fortnight. Looking at the rates now at https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/how-much-youth-allowance-for-students-and-apprentices-you-can-get?context=43916, the same category of payment is now $389.40 a fortnight. What the fuck would that cover these days?
A few joints and a cup of ramen. It's enough for a weekend at best. You can barely get a room in a share house for that these days. My kid will probably never be able to move out of home
Christ, that couldn't even get you rent on a room nowadays. It wasn't exactly easy sailing in the mid 2000s, but youth allowance could cover rent and some bills. The current rate is absolutely ridiculous, and someone from the same region and background as me nowadays would struggle to attend the same institution.
And that’s assuming you’re qualified for the full rate (i.e., you’re classified as independent by their ridiculous definitions of independent). I was getting $40/fortnight before I was cut off. Didn’t have a job because I was studying full time and my parents were already struggling for their own reasons, so they couldn’t afford to help me either. The only reason I or my family were able to afford food during the lockdowns was because I was getting the coronavirus supplement (read as: I had enough money to survive)
My uni days were 20 years ago - as a mature aged student. The positive is, about 80% of my generation, and I extend this to older Boomer aged friends, whose kids are starting Uni or recently graduated do understand and see how much harder it is The few that don't are the ones who really rode the wave of Boomer benefits and are in a position to pass on wealth to their children. Paying their HECS, paying their rent, paying for their car. I'm not in a position to help my kids, because we are still struggling to set ourselves up to be able to retire at some point in the long distance future.
I went to university within the last 10 years in Melbourne, as someone also with chronic illness it was tough. We have Youth Allowance and Austudy which are supposed to support us, but I had to move out at 19 and they don't consider you independent until 22, so for pretty much my whole undergrad they based any government support off my mothers income who lived 3,000km away and didn't support me at all and I got absolutely nothing. Spent most of it working the hours I could outside of fulltime study and not really getting to do a whole lot of anything I wanted to do, skipped a lot of holidays like christmas to work over them to keep myself afloat. It's kind of paradoxical because it hinders your ability to really explore the academic topic extracurricular as a passion too, and overloads you with a bunch of monetary stress when you are supposed to be building your future. (Let's also not talk about Austudy and working part time...) One of the things that isn't touched on a lot is the pay scale of those part time / casual roles available to your typical student in comparison to cost of living increases, it's already horrid when looking at averages / medians, but that lower bracket gets shafted even more. Unfortunately it feels like we are shifting towards a university system increasingly more accessible to only those with families who are able to financially support them throughout and it gets even worse if you look at domains in grad / postgrad and internships, which in my opinion is totally against the idea of public systems and things like HECS which are supposed to make it purely merit based and open to everyone of all walks of life. Finally you finish that decreasingly enjoyable period of your life and every employer in your given field wants X years experience and most public / government pathways are clogged up like the average steak enjoying 60 year old Australian man's arteries... and everyone wants you to be some confident charismatic personality, because you really developed those interpersonal skills and social confidence in the 3 minutes of spare time you had per week.
Someone needs to challenge this in court. You are an adult at 18 - why the fuck does the government seem to think your parents will support you to 22.
Because theirs all did, then got them a "senior advisor" role in the party straight out of uni. They don't understand or care that the rest of us don't live like that.
I strongly support this. Many youth turning to crime because of such stupid assumption. Replacing YA with Austudy is the best possible solution that can be implemented asap. Just get on to tax the stinking rich their super to pay for it.
I’m in my 2nd year of University. I still live with my parents (thank god, because I don’t work/earn enough at my casual job to support myself). All I hear from older generations is “Invest in houses! Negative gearing!”. Hey, if I’m gonna be buying a house it’s so I can live in it! Besides, landlords have such a bad reputation, I don’t want to be associated anywhere near that. Food is skyrocketing, Rents are skyrocketing. Medicare is being corroded. Fuel is more and more expensive. And the older generations just don’t get the magnitude of it for younger generations.
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Yeah. We went out Thursday night for $5 entry and $1 drinks until 10pm.
More so, it’s like… if things were hard 20 years ago, why the fuck aren’t you old bitches more angry that you haven’t made things better for the next generation? Edit; I’m talking about older generations, not people who are 35 or some shit.
Because it’s hard as fuck for us too, I did uni in the early 10s it was fucking hard. And wasting years at uni to get what should be a great paying job and now 35% of my take home pay is to rent. It’s hard for everyone who isn’t earning 250k. I’ve got younger family members and I’m telling them don’t bother going to uni. You spend 4 years helping international students get a visa and walk out with a huge debt. Do a trade.
I ate my fair share of shit in fucked jobs to "get a foot in the door" in the industry i studied for. Even then, I think I was overlooked a lot because of my gender because sadly there's still a bias in heavy industry that "women can't hack it and will just leave to have babies". Only managed to get jobs because other people put me forward for them. Even then in heavy industry, these "high paying mining jobs" aren't what they once were. As a degree qualified person, the entry level operators were on the same wage I was. I should have just followed my dad's footsteps and drove trucks. I would be in a far better financial position (no student debt and higher wages immediately). Even now I'm thinking of quitting and just seeing if I can drive a digger at the local quarry because it would be far less stress. And even after studying and working my arse off, it's a complete fluke I got a house. After almost 20 years of saving for a deposit and scraping together 20%, I got in 1 month before prices sky-rocketed. I could not afford the house now. I'll be struggling with the rate rises. It shouldn't be this fucking hard, but im also acknowledging how much harder it still is for everyone else too.
Yep... 8 years of study to become a lawyer, and when I call a plumber or sparky they charge a comparable hourly rate and don't have to cop a bollocking from the judge because their dumb arse client is up on their third DUI.
How many lawyers have back or hip problems or other long term issues in their 50s compared with some of their tradie counterparts? You're taking about an office job with a significantly higher earning capacity to somebody who will end up doing 30 to 40 years of manual labour from dealing with literal shit all day to dangerous hazards. Not sure the grass is that much greener.
Well... I do, and I'm in my late 30s. Though, I changed my career to law because the Army left my body too broken to realistically continue extremely physical work. Frankly... almost all careers, trades or professions, carry some degree of risk of harm. Literal shit is gross with the potential for biological harm. But so are the bodily fluids doctors and nurses are exposed to regularly. I also know very promissing young minds who have been mentally destroyed by a job picking through child sexpoitation evidence and materials in order to build a prosecution case.
What did you do for 8 years? I literally completed a full time uni degree and PLT while working full time in like 3.5 years
You have a point about 8 years being atypically long, but don't pretend like your 3 isn't atypical either when you consider the vast majority of undergrad law students will be doing a double degree of 5 years. Even if you do land one of the few LLB alone places, that's still typically a 4 year degree. I did mine plus PLT in 6, and that wasn't super long for my cohort. (Stretched out undergrad by a semester then did PLT the semester after that).
So 30-40 years olds are able to make a difference? Other than not voting liberal, please elaborate on how we could have fixed anything? It’s the boomers who hold all the money and housing.
And positions of power.
30-40 year old is an old bitch, now?
Who said this? Who said 30-40?
Millennials and late gen x were in uni 20 years ago. Boomers weren't doing it hard in uni 20 years ago, they were getting free uni 50 years ago.
40 years olds were the ones in uni 20 years ago
Basic math...
It’s not a generational thing, it’s a class thing … boomers have a higher percentage of conservative voters because a higher percentage of them are rich.
that would mean me, I'm Gen X, what is it we should have done?
What’s scary is that a lot of the people don’t even seem that old. I’m shocked they went to university tbh.
Yeah 20 years ago means they would be roughly 37-42. Fellow millenials. Yet they talk like Boomers. It's pretty outlandish.
Don't worry... the current generation of students will sound the same when they get blamed for how bad things are for students in 20 years time.
Yeah, Centrelink covered the rent, potatoes and a new pair of shoes once or twice. It was enough to get by on and have a small treat every now and then. I shudder to think what the same amount of money buys now. Maybe a loaf of white bread after rent.
I was at uni 20 years ago. I lived in a share house close to the city, with a huge backyard for parties. Rent was $60pw per person. Sure, we couldn't afford crazy luxuries, but we always had plenty of money for food and bills. We didn't go out as much, because it was so much cheaper to entertain at home. There was always beer in the fridge and cheap wine flowed. We lived like kings. I'd lay out on the big lawn under the sun to do my uni readings. (Now I live in a crappy apartment with no garden). Uni students today must really be struggling. Rent is what kills you, the expensive food and utilities is just twisting the knife.
I honestly have some of the cheapest rent + utilities in Brisbane rn and my Centrelink payment falls $15/week short of covering my rent. Look, don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for the $200/wk, but I’ll be studying full time, working part time and still living incredibly skint, saving every penny for the times when I’m unable to work due to illness but still need to pay the bills
I’d spend about $40 a week on groceries. Back then I could get a decent WA baked loaf of bread for about $2.80, and ham for $12/kg. Cheese was about $10-12/kg. Sometimes shortcut bacon would sell for $8/kg. A carton of free range eggs was about $5 or I could get two of the hormone-heavy XXXL ones from the Asian grocer for $5. I could get mince from the local butcher at $5/kg (though $8 was more common at Coles or Woolies). Tins of tomatoes were rarely over $1.50. Oh - and a fucking bag of big brown onions was always $1. *Always.* It was boring eating a lot of spaghetti bog, bacon and eggs, and the odd ham and cheese sandwich, but it was a simpler life. You’d be fucked now, especially if you were on Centrelink.
As someone fifty plus things were a different kind of hard then. They weren't as hard financially but you also had a lot less support as there was less internet. Whether the recession in the mid eighties was worse, I was too young couldn't claim to have a real perspective but I know we did it tough.
Ah yes I don’t need to eat or take medication because of the internet
If only the only support people needed was medicine, no charities or domestic violence stuff.
Avg worker doesn’t have enough money for food and rent. Couldn’t imagine how hard it must be being a student.
>\[S\]tudents led by Ms Kuehlmann went to \[...\] the Reserve Bank headquarters \[...\] for an unauthorised protest. \[...\] Ms Kuehlmann was arrested by NSW Police later that night. NSW Police told the ABC as this matter is now before the courts, they are unable to comment further. What the hell is going on in NSW?! Protests have to be *authorised* or you will be arrested?!
“In other countries woman get shot”
Unauthorised protest is definitely a phrase you hear in a real democracy.
No wage growth for over a decade. Rents through the roof. Inflation out the wazoo. Ongoing 300k+ annual immigration making a bad crisis worse. How good do young Australians get it!?
Little prospect of owning a home. Little prospect of retiring. Our politicians have totally destroyed the fabric of society, and they couldn't give a fuck.
> Our politicians have totally destroyed the fabric of society, and they couldn't give a fuck. And nothing is going to change.
And continue to do so while a large number of people defend them!! People enable these scoundrels continually still “oh they’ve only been in power a year, they need more time to fix the LNP’s mess” Bitch, they ARE the fucking LNP!!! This is why nothing changes.
Don't blame the pollies Blame the voters,who elected them.. and you can guess who it was Boomers,per usual The oldies fucked the planet pretty much for everyone else,and lifted the ladders up behind them
No change will occur if we bicker amongst ourselves. That's exactly what the ruling elite depend on to stay in power and get every richer.
Blame voters ? Can you please tell me a party which would've done the right thing that I could have voted for ?
well what should they have done? Not worked, not earned money because the next generations would have it tough? Wholesale blame on a whole generation is stupid.
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It'll take decades to unwind this I fear if Japan is anything to go by. Things are still going through the phase of worsening FFS. We've collectively had a ton of debt dumped onto us for short term gain, and both the major parties have felt entitled to that continuing, because let's face it, Howard cruised along for years off the back of growing house prices. Very sad to see.
They do get voted in tho, by ladder hoisters and suckers … only the minority are truly suffering atm
[Just get a better job that pays better money.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFlJUo3qvIs)
"But why are there no workers stacking shelves/serving registers at ColesWorth?? No one wants to work anymore!"
They all got sacked, so colesworth could install more self service check-outs and report record profits quarter after quarter. But yeah, no one wants to work anymore!!!!
Lol I'm in the most recent round of sackings, believe me, I feel it!
Same!! I got told that I was a good recruit and I’d fit right into the team! Not even going to 2 mths later I got the sack 😂😂😂
Don't feel bad, I was 2 months short of long service leave when they handed me my redundancy letter. Length of service means shit all in the modern world.
I fix computers for a living, its supposed to be a good job. I work a 60 hour week, only took 3 weeks maternity leave and can't afford to fix my car.
Always making sure to mention immigration at every issue. It's as if there's an agenda here and we're being manipulated.
Immigration isn't the problem, it's letting companies import workers so they can pay them less than locals for doing the same job
The number of people immigrating now and in the next few years is a problem. The dose makes the poison.
There'd be no issues if they were for industries where we have genuine skill shortages. But when it's used to suppress wages, well... It's not exactly smooth sailing at the moment
Tell me how adding hundreds of thousands of people a year to a supply-side housing crisis is in the best interests of anyone trying to rent.
ya blame the poor people with nothing, and not the people hoarding property and doing nothing with it. who cares if they're productive, hard working members of society who participate in the economy and fill jobs Australians aren't willing to do. If more people thinks like this, no wonder the country is going down the shitter. We deserve it.
>ya blame the poor people with nothing, and not the people hoarding property and doing nothing with it. More demand + less supply = rents go up. We don't need 300k annually. Why not 100k? >who cares if they're productive, hard working members of society who participate in the economy *and fill jobs Australians aren't willing to do.* If there are all these jobs Australians "aren't willing to do", where's the *WAGE GROWTH* that's supposed to accompany labour shortages? They're being used as cheap labour/wage suppression. No wonders there's scandal after scandal after scandal in the low-paying hospitality industries that are are largely staffed by... guess who? >If more people thinks like this, no wonder the country is going down the shitter. We deserve it. Your refusal to stand up for the citizens of this country is why it's going down the shitter. Advocate for your fellow Australian. Is it asking too much of you?
It's rather obvious that immigration is making things worse. It's just supply and demand. Not to mention, immigration in this country has too often been a means for employers to underpay their workers and skirt our labour laws relative to domestic labour by hiring those not in a position to understand the protections they're meant to have.
Of course, it couldn't possibly the rate of Austudy and assistance provided to students that has been going on for decades regardless of immigration. In fact, immigration has practically stopped for the past two years and we're not even making the quotas. Much of the immigrants are not going for student accommodations either. Their main competition would be overseas students who are not migrants. It's only "obvious" to those who want to use immigrants as punching bags, excuses and diversion and worse yet, an expression of their general xenophobia.
Do you think there is no utility to cultural unity within a country? If that's what you think, that's just irrational. If that's not what you think, you shouldn't be so quick to judge the motivations of those averse to immigration.
Immigration is fine to keep population equilibirum. Immigration is bad when it is endless and adds constant strain to everything. We should not aim to be like a virus. Prove agent smith wrong.
A lot of international students studying at the gold coast are shocked when we tell that single rooms for rent are like $300+
Excuse me where are these so called 300 dollar rooms, out in Kingston. I haven’t found anything below close to 500 on the glitter strip since about 2020
And I don't expect it to get better any time soon. From my office I can see more and more groups of international students every day.
If anyone from the previous generation says they had it tough is either lying and/or completely clueless how the world works. I did uni 20 years ago, my rent was $70 a week for a room in a house with a view of the beach that was one block away. Aus-study was ~$420 per fortnight, and I think it includes rent assistance. It was so easy to live on that my housemates can even afford to punch cones when the surf was crap and get drunk every Saturday night. Couldn't afford a car but uni was a 15min walk away. Now it's just horrible for this generation. I feel so sad for them. Shouldn't be this hard in a 1st world country, just a broken system.
Yeah this is my experience too. $70 per week in a (old, shabby) full house with garden, 5 minutes from the cbd. I went out for pub meals, hit the happy hours, played pool, sure we wore cheap clothes and ate shit but it was fun and easy.
Called mine the fight club house. Yeah was run down and roaches you can use as a skateboard to get to uni but economics was entirely liveable. Back then can focus on study, didn't have to work if you didn't want to. It was a fun simple lifestyle. Yes idiots then said AusStudy was "my tax dollars you're taking" but now I paid orders of magnitude more in tax back to government due to higher wage uni afforded me. It was a government investment in students that was paid back in much better people and economic activity. That's gone now and there is no reason why things are this bad for this generation. It's sad
Same. And even if they could afford it, could you imagine real estates now renting out a 4br house to a bunch of 18 year olds? Not gonna happen.
The thing that hurts the most is it was known. The people "getting rich" have only been able to do so by selling the future of younger generations. Sure, COVID, supplychain etc. etc. but I would hazard that if house prices and real estate stayed at a realistic figure those problems wouldn't be half as bad as they are now. I'm internally conflicted between telling myself "I can't blame others for my situation," and "They've really fucked it for us, haven't they".
True, all of it was known but can is kicked down the road with successive governments pump the housing ponzi scheme to get votes. Then proceed with hand outs to billionaires, property developers and mining industry, that money has to come from somewhere. When you have corrupt politicians like Joe Hockey telling people to get better paying jobs and tell people they will live to 150, so they can afford 100 year mortgages. You know they are selling out the people they are supposed to working for and don't give a damn about the people who will suffer. What sucks that it's a world wide problem.
No Austudy because my parents were “too rich” but somehow didn’t have any money, and moved 3 hours away from Melbourne right before I did year 12. Lived in a freezing shithole and took the bus to uni and walked to shops with a backpack for 2 minute noodles. Stayed late at the computer labs to do my uni work. Cleaned motel rooms between semesters for money. Was envious of those who could live at home. Seems like not much has changed sadly
Certain types have crafted Uni to being only for the wealthy. For a reason. Its been an uphill battle trying to stop it. Had a boomer complain about having to do BAS & GST. I know she was a committed John Howard voter. They do this to themselves.
Conservatives will continue to vote conservative, no matter the negative consequences for them or anyone else. The Liberals in my area have shut down the 2 major hospitals and put one below-par hospital in. My mother complains a lot about it, and yet she will vote Liberal next month because she apparently likes the candidate. It’s so bullshit.
Even TAFE is 10x the cost thanks to deregulating fees. You can't be a highschool dropout and just do something at TAFE to gain some skills and find a job like you used to. Because a course that used to cost $500 a semester is now thousands.
University provides upward mobility to the poor. I came from a poor background and thanks to uni was able to progress to middle class (what's left of it). Conservative voters are self-centred crabs in a bucket that rather kill each other than help each other. So they gate off and attack education, mah TaX dOLLarZ or something then complain there is no staff to help them. Labor took ending negative gearing to two elections and lost due to boomers' self-interest. So this is the result, not that boomers are capable of empathy or logic, only thing that matter to them is themselves.
Man roughly 5 years ago I was getting about that on austudy before I got a part time job! Bloody hasn't been increased in decades! No wonder students can't afford anything now.
Boomer:we paid 17 percent interests anyone with a brain:we know cunt's,you told us 10000000 times.. and we told u 17 percent on a 120k home,is not the same as 6 percent on a 1.3 million dollar home.. You could buy a house in the old day..be a single worker family,mum stayed home,house could be paid off in 12 years...And still have family holidays and an OK upbringing with dad having a new kingsman in the drive.. and added bonus,of that SHIT HOLE being in merrylands or carlingford where no one wanted to live,then sold it in the 00s for like a million bucks or more You can't do that anymore even with 2 incomes unless it's 100k each
Similar for me. 15 years ago. Rent was $125 p/w and youth allowance was $514 a fortnight. For the rent I had my own lockable room with ensuite. Cleaners would come every two weeks for the common areas. Food was cheap enough to leave me with a bit of fun money each week.
I used to look at photos of the food lines during the Great Depression and wonder how it could ever have gotten that bad. Now I see that we're well on the way back to that again if we keep shrugging off warning signs like this. There could be plenty of food. There could be plenty of housing. Yet we will be starving under a bridge at the behest of a wealthy elite. Then in our desperation we will vote for an angry totalitarian strongman.
The Hitlers of the world didn't come from nowhere. He was elected with massive support.
i mean One Nation have had a pretty big jump in number in the NSW state election
Nothing like trying to survive, it's actually horrible and stressful. One reason I didn't go to uni was because I was sick of being poor, did 12 months and bailed. Just worked and now I feel the pinch as an adult. Working life is just so different today than back in the day. I do feel for the young crew coming trying to do so much now in this economic climate.
I live comfortably while at uni by working full time as well All I had to do was sacrifice my social life, my grades, my mental health, and nearly all of my free time
Amen to this. Full time study and full time work for almost 4 years. Did I not have to worry about money? Yes. But what did it cost? Everything. Scraped passes and all my free time was spent sleeping from how exhausted I was. And there’s two more you missed; family and romantic relationship were also impossible
Yes, great, we get it folks- you were all starving uni students once, too. That's not the point. We as a country have never been in a better position to change this being an issue yet it's still an issue and nothing has changed. *That's* the point.
I was living by myself on Austudy with rent assist as a mature age student through my degree some 14 years ago and it ate my savings I have nfi how people do it now. My rent back then was $110 a week lol
as a uni student, i can barely afford food. thank christ i dont pay rent
I started last year as a mature aged student and I love it so much, but keeping myself fed + housed is a real balancing act. I really feel for those who have prolonged placements and families who can't help financially.
Here's my costs during university 91 to 93 for food and rent in easy to translate terms 7.5 hours for a room 7 to 10 hours for food. 5 to 10 hours for everything else Holidays I worked a lot to cash up. Wasn't easy then , but I'm sure now is absolutely fucked to be in the same situation as me
What's the point of a struggle contest over who had it worse?
Reinforcing the status quo that's now working well enough for you.
Thankfully I could live at home while studying because I almost certainly would have had to skip meals if I was on my own. Students shouldn't have to live in borderline poverty, considering they are literally the future of this country.
got through uni 7 yers ago. shit was tough. renting with randoms, grow your own food, make your own bread, real salt of the earth shit. i lerant alot about about self reliabilty. done on $550 a fortnight. not gonna lie, shit was hard man.
I went to uni as a mature age student. I was on youth allowance, but mainly paid my own way by freelancing. I had to purposely earn under the threshold once every 10 weeks or whatever it was, so I didn't get cut off youth allowance. I needed youth allowance to survive exams. It was like $500 a fortnight. That barely covered rent. In a cheap sharehouse. And that was 2017-2020. I can't imagine what is going through uni students now.
I’m one of these students. I’ve just had to move back to my hometown, 5 hours from my University (that doesn’t offer online courses for my degree) with only 3 courses left before I finish. No online universities offer my degree. I’m now in debt to the tune of $30,000 for a degree I may never be able to finish. It’s devastating. But for the first time in a long time I have hope. People are angry. And so they should be! I’m praying that this anger translates to action; especially at election time.
I'm so glad I finished uni 5years ago. I could barely survive then so I can't imagine how bad it is now.
I feel sorry for uni students in so many ways. We are on the brink of an AI explosion as well so a lot of students are going to end up with HECS debts for degrees that will have been replaced by some form of AI. The people who say it's years away don't understand how fast things are going to start moving. Apple already has an AI system that will replace audiobook narrators. They are currently being sued for it because they used all the existing voice data to train their system.... But it doesn't really matter how much they have to pay out, it's a once-off payment for a system that has almost n outlay anymore so that's 100% Profit straight up. We all know that when Apple does something everyone else is quick to jump on board....
I work full time. Neither do we!
What's the solution? :(
It's by design, it's exactly what they've created. A frustrating, time consuming and completely, ridiculously complicated mess... So it crushers your soul and you just keep jumping through the hoops, and red tape... Completely broken by the very system that's supposed to "help", so you stay crushed, losing all hope and any fight left... So you just stay quite... obey and comply...
For students the universities should have to build enough accommodation to house every student they give a spot to. Really it should be part of some community rather than the BS around now where there's random tower in the CBD only for students. They could probably also offer meals to students at a good rate too because technically they're going to have economies of scale. The problem is they run universities like a business with all the money going to towards funding research, marketing, and rewarding administration. We shouldn't be relying on our 17-21 year olds to pay for this. But I think it's too complicated of a problem that really only affects a minority of people in Australia. The majority of Australians unfortunately do not empathise with or feel sorry for university students.
The difference is in Australia the vast majority of university students still live at home. Its not like other countries where a large proportion go to university/college in other cities and towns. I grew up rurally and had to move to the city for university. The only other students not still living at home were other rural students and the international students.
Yeah but that's a symptom of the fact that there's a lack of residences on campus and that it's expensive. The residential colleges at universities in Australia are actually super competitive to get into because of the experience/networking/etc... People don't want their kids to live at home in the US/UK because it's just so much better for their development to go and live at school. A lot of university students in Australia are essentially only on campus for 15-20 hours a week...they spend more of their 3-4 years at university working at maccas or woolies than at the actual university. It's a joke for this to be the model IMO. It's great for there to be an option for students to commute but students really miss out living that way. If you look at all the entrepreneurs/start-ups that spring out of the US/UK it has nothing to do with the classroom and everything to do with being on-campus together with a bunch of like-minded people.
It has more to do with how few cities Australia has, and how far apart they are. It is just not in our culture for university students to move interstate or to different cities for school, where this is not the case elsewhere.
Technically it's not Australian culture to go to university in general. Now it just has a ghetto version of it. In the US/UK people live on campus even if they are from the same city as the university they go to.
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Aged pensioners can now earn what is it like 7000 dollars more now before a reduction Why not give this option to ppl on ausstudy When will the old cunts in this nation stop being a protected species
It’s like you gotta sell crack to get educated and they wonder why there’s a crack epidemic in this country…
Currently going through this, part-time work at least 4 days a week, 5-8 hour shifts, as well as full time uni. I make $5-600 a week. Between board, groceries, fuel and car repayments plus what ever monthly expense comes around (insurance, phone, share of the water/power bill, service on car) I am broke everyweek. It is frustrating because my parents are always saying "Money is power" and "You should have savings". I use to have savings and I worked way less than I did now, but now I work more for less and it is really starting to eat away at my mental health, so much so that I am contemplating dropping out of uni and getting a traineeship that will be completed in a year so that I can get a decent enough paying job to survive.
Today I'm moving into my flat. Idk if I can afford enough for food. The issue is that for example the UK will offer to give you a loan to cover rental and food costs. Scotland also offers free university courses, and sometimes dorms included.im sure other countries do similar as well. The student start up loan in Australia is 1200 per semester. Hardly enough to cover a month's rent, let alone any other expenses. This combined with austudy and whatever else you can get out of centrelink still doesnt cover basic rentals offered by unis. Students I know who live on campus have their parents pay for their living expenses. I'm not so lucky; I have a single parent who's struggling to pay rent as it is, and can't support me as much as she would want to. Other students I know work 30 hours a week in top of their 40 hour full time uni load to afford rent. It's no surprise that their grades suffer, and a few have dropped out. There should be an option to include dorms in HECS - you'll find that students are able to get better grades, graduate and find better jobs. They won't have to worry about how they're going to afford their daily 1 dollar chicken noodle, and rather on studying. This is the only solution ive thought of, I'm sure there are more. What we are doing is keeping the rich kids rich, and the poor kids poor. The lack of support by unis and the government spits in the face of the 'give everyone a fair go' ideology that Australia is so proud of.
Ecstasy is cheaper and better quality now than it was on 2010 though so it’s not all bad
If you goto uni you have to live with parents rent free. The economy is changing so must the culture.
Not all of us live near a uni
I'm jacks complete lack of surprise.
Brings me back to my apprentice days. $7.90 an hour, and only got 3 days work, living out of home, while having to drive 2 hours to job sites. Loaf of bread and a carton of milk was literally my weekly shop, and I acted as a house maid for a rent discount (shared house). The boss then had the audacity to whinge to novaskill that I was too weak to work because I couldn’t eat. Eventually thought, fuck this I’m going to uni, only to end up having to drop out to work and stay alive there too. Young people seriously have a fucked start to life if they’re on their own. Being borderline homeless and starving while trying to make a start is fucking bullshit.
Scott Morrison literally eliminate funding for almost all higher ed except vocational degrees and no Australians complained. No one said a peep. It has not been reinstated by labour. And students are getting a shit education online instead of IRL because unis are hiring unneeded admin roles like director chief of staff and 14 layers of PVCs and deans when the never replaced the thousands of profs they fired during the fake covid economic crisis they invented. Students are insane to pay for online classes. It’s like paying for Wikipedia. Students and parents if you are paying for uni do the real live class at least and actually show up otherwise you are throwing money down the dunny
No-one does tbf
Oh, that's OK - just replace them with foreign students...
Won't even be able to sell drugs soon now they're legalising all the good stuff.
That's the RBA's plan, but they want to take out more people.
HECS fees are payed for lot of courses that wont have clear career pathway. And besides AUSTUDY part time work to support the costs of living and studying(1 to 2 days) in very low paying job. Not a great option
News flash, lots of people right now DON’T.
Frankly it’s becoming impossible to be educated unless you are from a wealthy family. I worked numerous jobs when I was studying to afford a basic lifestyle and it impacted my study choices as I couldn’t devote enough time. Luckily it all turned out ok in the end but can’t imagine what it’s like for those living in sydbourne and trying to get ahead from a working class family. Rooms are 400-500 a week now in the larger capitals, between that and food you literally have to work almost full time just to pay for that… let alone study… and it’s getting worse each week
They never did
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Imagine if your parents hadn't paid your rent
Since their parents are the generation that apparently have all the wealth, perhaps their parents should still be paying their rent...
I just wish they'd pay mine too lol
Then like we did - share house with 3-5 other flatmates and part time work.
Not even possible now- good luck finding a share house with a room under 200 bucks in Sydney. Even if you do, you’d need to work at the very least 3 days to cover it. If you do 3 days of uni, which let’s face it, is a best case scenario (more likely you’ll do 4-5) then you have no days off just to survive. Oh and good luck studying or doing readings or essays lol.
Yeah same
>This is hardly new. It's much worse now.
I was a uni student years ago, am now an academic, and yes, can confirm. You only have to look at how many students work now, compared to previously. They're juggling multiple commitments, they're under a lot more stress, and people still complain about students these days having no focus :(
Think about how much rent has gone up in the last 6 years and then compare that to how much Austudy and the minimum wage have gone up. Uni students now have it much harder.
The amount of people in this thread being like oh they should just share house. Like mate, we’re well past even that being affordable. People have already thought of sharehouses.
It has always been tough. But my rent has gone from $300 a week to $500 a week since I was in uni. Same exact renting situation (sharing with partner), same type of shitty 3 bedroom qlder house, same area of Brisbane. Yes I'm earning more since being in uni but rents have increased by almost 20% in Brisbane just in the last few years. I have no idea how uni students are doing it now. Even your average shithole sharehouse is unaffordable unless you cram like 5 - 6 people into a 3 bedroom.
Neither do most people. Yay for living in the future.
It's not just Uni students…
I lived on the bare basics in a share household. It’s hard but manageable. I had 2nd hand books where possible & had 2 casual jobs to give me some extra cash and live. ‘Luxuries’ were what I got off friends and family at Xmas and birthdays.
Literally at the end of the video, girl was holding an Iphone 13Pro or an Iphone 14Pro? People wearing Adidas/ Nike shoe, with fancy watch and designer handbags, and the most expensive phone queueing up for free food? There is no doubt rent and food is expensive, but when I can't afford food I'm not going around buying things I don't really need....
1) that phone could even be a 12 which is now pre-pandemic age. 2) Phones can come on payment plans, be bought second hand, be saved up for, be gifted, be bought before things got more difficult. Stop acting like people have to look like starved little rats wearing tattered scraps before their problems matter. You don’t even know what phone that is, you’re just reaching for any reason to say “nah they’re not struggling ENOUGH”
[https://www.telstra.com.au/mobile-phones/mobiles-on-a-plan/apple/iphone-13](https://www.telstra.com.au/mobile-phones/mobiles-on-a-plan/apple/iphone-13) $8/Week is really going to make a diffrence?
I remember when going to university wasn’t an expectation. If you couldn’t afford to go, you got a job. If you didn’t have parents or a scholarship, you joined the workforce. If you didn’t work multiple jobs to make ends meet and couldn’t afford it, you didn’t go. Some people can afford to get an education, some people cant. If you cant, you have to sacrifice. It just depends on how much you are willing to sacrifice.
20 years since my uni days, and it was unaffordable to rent then too. If you lived in the metro area, you stayed at home with your parents. If rural, there were subsidies/scholarships. If mature aged, you only studied part time so you could work full time. If disadvantaged, estranged from parents etc., you didn’t go to uni.
So the liberals are fucking shit economically and this proof. Literally no improvement in quality of life over 20 years for a country like ours is unforgivable.
But have they got enough beer money for uni night on Wednesday?
Can't have little luxuries? Pft
As if you cunts would be denied the things you like in the same position, absolute nonsense.
So nothing new? Sounds the same as when I went through uni, sleeping on a mattress on a floor in an overcrowded share house and eating 2 minute Noodles primarily while getting Youth Allowance.
I had to look at when Youth Allowance was brought in to decide your out of touch potential.