The federal government's plan to increase student fees for higher education and decrease the income threshold for student loan repayments could cripple students' ambitions to study, Jamie Morris - a prospective Masters student - said this week.
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Mr Morris, 25, lives in Inverell with his partner, Steph, and hoped to study a masters of building surveying at Bond University. He said changes to student fees unveiled this week, which could see students paying off their loans sooner, had put considerable strain on his plans to study.
"It is actually discouraging me from going to uni," he said.
"It is discouraging because it is making me think, first of all as a young person, how am I going to juggle a mortgage, maybe a car repayment, and if I have a family as well."
On Monday, Education Minister Simon Birmingham proposed changes to student fees that could see the price of a four-year course increase by up to $3600. Students also face repaying loans once they reach an income threshold of $42,000 per year, down from the previous threshold of $55,000 a year.
"Let's face it. It is a lot of money," Mr Morris said.
"You have your student fees, but then you have your meals, your accommodation, your books, anything else that you may need."
The 2017 Bond University fee schedule listed the degree cost of a master of building surveying at $54,708.
Fee changes will mean 54 percent of the cost of university study will still be taxpayer-funded, Mr Birmingham said this week, but student fees will have increased by around 7.5 percent by 2021.
Mr Morris moved to Australia from Britain. He studied construction and said he worked his way up in the industry from trade level with ambitions to own his own business.
He said he still has student debt from study in the UK.
“I have accepted that. I know that is coming,” he said. Mr Morris was seeking permanent residency in Australia before undertaking further study.
"I know nothing works out the way it is supposed to, but I had a rough idea of where I was going to go, what I needed to do, and what it was going to cost me. To then hear this, it changes everything for me,"
- Jamie Morris
"It does weigh quite heavily on me sometimes. It can. People deal with it differently.
"It is a big juggling act. Just juggling your finances. You have to move things around.
"A lot of young people don't like it, but sometimes you just have to do without.”
Mr Morris said prospective students are facing the choice between higher education and other financial obligations, like buying a home.
A consensus among real estate agents found housing was more affordable in regional areas than in metropolitan centres. The average price of a medium sized home in Inverell was estimated to be around $280,000. But agents agreed housing affordability had a gradual trickle-out effect from capital cities.
"It makes me think while trying to chase a profession and study at the same time. How do I make that work?" Mr Morris said.
He said he had to balance his choice to study as one that could impact on his family financially, potentially for years.
"Student debt is very worrying. I carry some already and to think do I want to put my family through that - my wife and potentially my kids," he said.
The federal government has estimated this week the changes could save $2.8 billion over four years.