Structural Change in the higher education in Australia: Part 2 HECS and beyond
03/05/2025
The Australian Government supported tertiary enrolments in Australia with the HECS scheme in 1989. It saw no need to extend this deferred payment scheme to vocational education until 2017. By this time, and as a partial consequence, student HECS debts were becoming unsustainable, Australia faced a severe skilled labour shortage but had a surplus of lawyers and other graduates. In 1989 the Hawke /Keating Government, as a consequence of the disastrous free fee legislation of a decade earlier, were forced
