Updated
If you're a uni student, want to be one, or have already graduated, some changes may be on the way.
The Federal Government's shaking up the system (as long as the Parliament passes the reforms).Under the proposal, students would fork out more for courses, and graduates would start paying back their loans earlier.
So how could it affect you?
I'm studying at uni right now
It'll depend how much longer you've got left on your course.Student fees would start to go up in 2018 (by 1.8 per cent) leading up to a 7.5 per cent increase by 2021.
The longer you've got left, the more fee increases you'd be hit with.
Like everyone else, once you graduate you'd also be affected by the HELP changes (see below).
I've graduated and still have debt
If you've got a HELP loan but haven't started paying it back yet, from July 2018 you'd have to start if your annual income is more than $42,000.
If you were already paying back the loan (earning just under $55,000), there's a good chance you'd be paying back a slightly bigger percentage of your income towards it.
You can use the calculator we've built to find out how much of your income you'd pay towards your HELP debt under the new rules.
I'm not at uni yet, but will be in the next year or so
If these changes pass through Parliament, they'll all affect you at some point.
But the thing you might want to keep in mind when choosing a course is how much extra it could cost you.
Here's a breakdown of how much more degrees in these courses will cost if you start in 2018 compared to now:
- Arts/humanities (three-year course): Up $700 to $20,400
- Nursing (four-year course): Up $1250 to $27,800
- Science (three-year course): Up $1000 to $29,100
- Medicine (six-year course): Up $3900 to $71,900 (includes $8500 medical loading)
- Teaching (four-year course): Up $1250 to $27,800
You'll also be hit by the changes to when you'll have to start repaying your HELP loan (see above) once you graduate.
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