Fee hikes urged to boost university funding UNIVERSITY student fees could be hiked by as much as 66 per cent in some cases under a proposal from the Innovative Research Universities predicated on expectations that government funding will be flat at best or cut in the long term. In its submission to the Abbott government's Kemp-Norton review of the demand driven system of university places, the IRU recommends that the review "explore the value" of lifting the maximum student contribution in the various disciplinary bands to match the top band, which charges $10,085 a year for medicine, dentistry law, accounting and business courses. That would represent a 17 per cent rise from $8,613 a year for science, computing, engineering, agriculture and allied health students, and a 66 per cent rise from $6,044 a year for humanities, social science, language, art and nursing students. Only about 23 per cent of full time bachelor student load is currently charged at the highest rate, the so-called band three level. IRU executive director Conor King said the proposal recognised that given the budget pressure, extra government money for the sector was unlikely but that the sector remained underfunded as it is. He said increasing costs to students could only be justified if it delivered a net gain in funding for the sector to benefit student learning, rather than simply being a straight substitute for government funding. He acknowledged that there was a risk that the government could use such a proposal to cut its funding, but depending on the size of any cuts, increasing student contributions could still bring a net gain in funding, the value of which would have to be assessed by the sector in considering whether to support it or not. The simplest thing would be to keep it rolling as it is and assume that higher education is somehow excluded from the budget tightening. And if so, that is fine. But if they decide otherwise, and it may not be this term but in the longer term, then we are giving them a constructive suggestion of what they could do without simply slugging the student more, just for the budget bottom line," Mr King told the HES. But as the IRU argues, there is no strong rationale for the difference in fees whether in terms of relative cost of delivery or in the generalised potential earnings power of graduates from different disciplines. "In effect, if business units can cost the top amount, it isn't clear why any other discipline should be less," the IRU said. The submission argues that while the increase in fees would boost the debt owed to government from the HELP income contingent loan scheme, the key to keeping the scheme sustainable isn't the absolute size of the outstanding debt but the individual size of the debts owed by students. And it argues in that sense, if the system can sustain $10,085 a year for some students, it should be able to sustain it at that level for all students. "If the band three level is sustainable for students of business and accounting units it should be sustainable for students enrolled in other disciplines," the IRU said. In response to calls from parts of the sector for some fee deregulation in order to allow universities to offer and fund more resource-intensive courses, the IRU instead has revived a recommendation from the 2008 Bradley review that would allow universities to opt out of Commonwealth funding in some courses in return for offering full fee undergraduate places. Such courses would forgo the government subsidy in return for charging students higher fees. Students would have access to FEE-HELP loans in which total loan amounts are capped. The IRU said that opting out would be conditional on universities designating entire discipline areas as non-government supported. The IRU comprises Charles Darwin University, Flinders University, Griffith University, James Cook University, La Trobe University, Murdoch University and University of Newcastle.