Life Matters - Separate stories podcast
Society & Culture:Relationships
Avoiding a 'debt spiral': Are paid placements and changes to HECS-HELP indexation enough to make a difference for students?
Over the weekend, the Government has proposed two important changes for tertiary students and graduates.
The HECS-HELP scheme would be indexed to the lower option of the Consumer Price Index or the Wage Price Index, and that change will be backdated a year, which will save students and graduates hundreds or thousands of dollars.
Additionally, students studying nursing, teaching, midwifery, and social work will now be paid $319.50 a week during their placements; work that has previously been completely unpaid.
Professor Christine Morley and Professor Andrew Norton discuss whether these measures are enough to stop the 'debt spiral' that some students are describing and whether they wukk attract new students to degrees that have previously seemed unaffordable.
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