HECS Payback

Once again, tax is not a bank you pay into and withdraw from. I've, I've. I've, I've...

 

Moving right along.....
New Zealanders and PRs will be affected big time if the changes go through.

‘We will leave’: Kiwis and permanent residents reeling from uni fee hike

 

The ATO is relying on people who move overseas notifying them of their new address. Like that's going to happen!

 

That's your view.

 

That's fkd up.
So sick of politicians targeting education for their lack of ability to balance the budgets. Education of not only permanent residents, but frequently of citizens too.
This kind of thing brings down the economic furnace of the entire country as less of the population is able to innovate and move the country forward economically. It is just stealing from the future of the country as a whole to make their books look better at budget time.
Wish there was a way to just make it virtually impossible for them to take money from education, like a requirement of 90% of a vote needed, so that try as they might, they just could never get the numbers to screw something so important up.

Sorry .. end of rant.

 

IMHO everything should be on the table - there should be no sacred cows which cannot be touched.

Plenty of areas where education can be made more efficient and more productive for the goals needed. How many Arts students majoring in feminist intersectional basket weaving do we need to fund from tax coffers?

I was very disappointed when under Abbott the education reforms didn't go through allowing universities to charge appropriate amounts for university degrees - instead it became a nonsense debate with chanting about blatant lies of "100k uni degrees".

The conversation increasingly needs to become about redirecting funds into other areas of education, not just universities so we don't have an entire population with useless degrees and requiring PHD's for entry level roles.

 

I was disappointed too. The whole "debt sentence" campaign was nonsense. The side of politics running the campaign is wrongly labelled "progressive". There was nothing progressive about that campaign.

I agree. Years ago I worked for an RTO helping kids who were struggling at high school to find workplace based traineeships while they still studied at high school. The kids who were useless at school were brilliant in the workplace. After some time working with them their grades at school improved too. It was such a good program but seriously underfunded. TAFE is underfunded too. I have studied at TAFE and uni and found the level of education at TAFE equalled or surpassed uni in most areas. Yet TAFE is seriously underfunded too. Its great for every Australian to go to uni but then who will build our houses, fix our cars etc. Lack of skilled trades would be a huge problem.

 

Nothing cost nothing extra it just more money taken out of your pay and go into ATO
similar things as jack up medicare levy

 

How much does it cost to see your GP after you get your Medicare rebate?

 

There was alot of rorting of going on with all these training companies that offered courses to people that weren't suitable to enrol to the course, didn't have the capacity to undergo the course and since they were low income earners, didn't have to pay the amount back but received a free laptop for their troubles.

 

That's not HECS though, is it? From memory it was VET FEE-HELP.

Previously, TAFE courses didn't have the equivalent of HECS, which is not good. Everyone should have an access to further education whether they go to uni or not. I thought it was a good thing that the Government of the day introduced VET FEE-HELP. Unfortunately, it appears the implementation was botched. A bunch of scam private sector RTOs were set up to game the system and make millions of dollars profit while leaving low income earners with unrepayable debts. It is a shame that a good program was abused in this way by a number of greedy operators. Disgusting actually.

‘This is a blatant rip-off of the taxpayer and the government’'

In case the link doesn't work, article title is ‘This is a blatant rip-off of the taxpayer’: Training colleges facing audit of ‘predatory’ pricing

 

And the companies made massive amounts of money in government subsidies for essentially operating scams. That's what happens when you try to privatise everything rather than putting proper funding into education.

 

Yes, my bad and yes it was vet-HELP. Made some owners of these companies become very rich overnight and they were aggressive with their sign ups.

 

Disgraceful. They should be prosecuted except I don't think what they did was actually illegal. It should have been.

 

If I recall correctly, there was one company that was ordered to pay millions back because they were signing up people that weren't even able to attend.
I'll try find the story but it was something like $100mil.

Edit: $140mil.
Training college could be forced to repay millions in government loans

 

Can you dodge by salary sacrificing? I thought your income for 'HECS-HELP' repayment assessment included it all?

I am personally very thankful for the generous government policies that have enabled me first to study and then raise my children. I do intend to work hard for the next 25 years to pay school fees and taxes!

 

I always thought it was based off base salary earned..

Will be so happy when my wife finishes paying hers off this EOFY. Will get another 10k in our pockets per year :/

 

That's the thing, once it's paid off, it's like an a pay increase!!! More money in the pocket means more money to spend on making things grow!!

 

Graduates could always pay back voluntary amounts regardless of their income, like more than the mandated rate. Novel, I know. For a person who has been living on nearly nothing for a long time, they could, if they wanted to, get a job that pays more income but channel some of that higher income into paying off the debt while they are used to being that poor. Hang on, that is what responsible people do anyway.

 

Wow, I didn't realise what a bubble some people live in on here.