US-style system? Theirs is better
By MIKE SECCOMBE
The Prime Minister, Mr Howard, was at great pains yesterday to assure
Parliament the Kemp plans for universities did not mean the introduction
of "an American-style system".
Yet the American system is actually a great deal cheaper for the average
student and arguably more egalitarian than that operating in Australia
now, let alone the system which would operate under the Kemp plan.
According to the most recent available US figures, for 1996-97, for the
two-thirds of tertiary students who attended public universities, the
average annual tuition cost was less than $US3,000 ($4,600).
Compare that with the average cost to an Australian student under the
Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) of between $4,000 and $5,000.
The other one-third of students in the US went to private institutions,
and their tuition costs averaged almost $US13,000. Even so, these
colleges are vastly more accessible to the less well-off than private
courses would be under Kemp's scheme, for two very good reasons which do
not pertain here.
The first is the the US has a long tradition of philanthropy, which
Australia does not. Most US private institutions have enormous accrued
endowments to call on to defray costs. For example, the most fashionable
of the Ivy League unis in recent years, Brown, has a war chest of more
than $US800 million.
The second is that even these elite colleges have schemes to
redistribute income from their wealthy students to poorer ones. In 1997,
76 per cent of students starting out at US private universities received
at least some scholarship aid. At the less prestigious, smaller ones,
this figure was 86 per cent.
Overall, private colleges redistribute roughly a third of their stated
fees back in assistance to less wealthy students. And this ignores the
huge number of scholarships provided by the corporate sector and service
organisations.
Still, the US remains a two-tier system in which the very wealthy can
buy their way into the best colleges. A recent article in Vanity Fair
magazine claimed the above-mentioned Brown University, once the ugly
duckling of the Ivy League, doubled its endowment in eight years by
deliberately targeting the children of the rich and famous.
Celebrities including film stars, musicians and designers as well as a
long list of lesser-known millionaire and billionaire financiers and
corporate heavies paid the $29,000 annual tuition fees.
Yet Brown helped more more than 40 per cent of its students with full or
part scholarships. That means that single university gave out probably
more in scholarships than the whole Australian tertiary sector.
So when Howard and Kemp say the Government will not introduce an
American-style system, it is no cause for joy. They plan something worse.
--
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