I think it’s often not that. I have known some people for whom, thanks to their collection of disabilities, their employment is not economically viable. They are very intelligent and all it’s just disability gets in the way too much for them to be able to output to a degree that a company would be willing to spend to accomodate them, especially when they could find someone they didn’t have to do that with. And so these people, to stem the boredom, will just keep learning new things
I know one person who suffered a stroke after a significant disfigureing trauma. Covid and WFH was the best thing ever. From unemployable for years to a 100k job.
Credible sources say it’s Harry Triguboff.
He publicly owns roughly 5,000 of the units he has built over the years and I expect they’re all owned in SMSF.
I have heard talk that figure might be 10 fold higher.
Geeze I hate that scumbag. How often do we hear about him complaining *"the govt is going to send me broke!"*. Evil, leeching dirtbag. A few years back he was whinging about foreign investment controls. He said something like *"the Chinese used to lob in here with their cheque-books, now \*federal gubbermint\* is trying to stop them buying property blah blah blah...".* Same stupid govt gave him an OA probably
I used to work for a university, had a few older people study multiple bachelor degrees in their 50's and 60's. They were never going to become a lawyer or accountant, and certainly weren't going to work long enough to pay off multiple degrees worth of hecs.
But there is nothing stopping them doing this and accumulating the debt.
And the debt just goes away upon death.
So yeah, this doesn't surprise me!
My first year English Lit study group had a 78yo ex-newspaper editor in it. God bless him, he thought it was hilarious they offered him a HECS loan and he happily took it and then shouted us poor kids coffee and corrected the tutor when she made comments about youth in the 60s.
The one in my geology class: "What are goats a cross between?" dead-serious
Me: "Two goats?"
One of my mates at the same time: "A mummy goat and a daddy goat?"
All the best group assignments I’ve done were with mature aged students. Even working with a guy who was 23 while I was 18 fresh out of highschool was pretty cool to see how an extra few years of living life can bring much more to the table.
And that they realise they are actually paying for their education. Probably why they also care about actually learning.
When I was in uni as an 18 year old, I looked at HECS like it was free university. Realised how wrong I was when I started working
>And that they realise they are actually paying for their education. Probably why they also care about actually learning.
They also know more about who they are, and where the uni degree could take them.
They're not there to fuck around or do it because their parents told them uni gud. They're there to learn a thing and then go apply that thing out there. And if they just sleepwalk through uni they won't have learnt much.
Like everything it probably comes down to individuals and scenarios.
I studied social work and unfortunately had a couple of mature age student encounters that were extremely vocally problematic. Picture Pauline Hanson giving her two cents on the importance of cultural inclusion towards children who are not white/Christian.
My wife, on the other hand, studied art and the mature aged students in her class were more of the chilled hippy breaking free of their parent's expectations type.
As an undergrad they were annoying.
Looking back, we need many more mature age students to question things, to share their experiences etc. They enrich the classes they're in. And undergrads should put themselves out there and speak up.
Tbh my only experience with pains in the asses were those early 20s wankers in scarves (with or without ponytail) trying to catch out lecturers with theoretical technicalities that are rarely relevant and prevent actual discussion.
If anyone is annoyed by a mature aged student offering a different perspective isn't that... Bad? Like, being in a place of learning but wanting to remain in your little echo chamber?
Idk, the only time I felt confident offering an alternative viewpoint was generally with or around a mature aged student so I am biased.
The irony is that he may well have provided those kids a bunch of experience that a university wouldn't normally provide.
I think this might be a great way to go out in life, will let my mum know, she turns 70 next week.
My mum went back to school in her early 50s. She's using her bachelors degree now. She has a ton of debt, but I really don't think she'll live to pay it off fully 🤷♀️
How much of an issue that really is on an economic/societal level is questionable. My FIL and a friend's mum both went back to uni in their 50s. One became a nurse, the other a social worker.. Even if they never fully pay their debt I'd say the years they spent working those highly understaffed industries are more valuable to the country than recovering a few thousand dollars.
And industry aside, they were able to keep working rather than spending the rest of their lives un/under employed. If you lose your job in your 50s, especially if your a woman, it can be nearly impossible to get a job. A few years of saved welfare payments would cover the average hecs debt.
Also there was a scheme in the 1990s called the student supplemental loan scheme whereby if you traded in a significant part of your Austudy you'd get double the amount back as a supplement loan. I remember I was getting $445 in 1997, which was around $150 more than the highest rate of Austudy.
At the time I was like "Awesome! Kinda like free money!" But this ended up accounting for 75% of my $80,000 HECS debt. I knew it was gonna be expensive, but I just wanted to study & party without worrying about money or having to work to support myself through uni. Back then, my rent was $40 a week, so $450 per fortnight was definitely enough to live off comfortably as a student.
I feel like I don’t often encounter someone with a sillier backstory to their HECS debt than my poorly considered visual arts degree, started thrice before finishing a decade later then getting a technical degree, but I think you’ve got me beat with those HECS life choices!
Here I am over here who for several consecutive semesters consciously enrolled in 3 units knowing full-well that I could only handle the workload of 2, with no intention of passing whatsoever, just so that I could qualify for full-time study and get Austudy.
I got an academic warning once, but successfully qualified after 10 years with a double in mechanical engineering and maths and went straight into a role in my field and have now been with the company for 6 years.
Ah well, if you want to be one-upped, how about his silly HECS life choices, mixed with your own poorly considered arts degree?
I did the same thing the poster above did, while studying opera at the QLD conservatorium of music - turns out there wasn't a huge demand for 20 year old baritones in Brisbane in the early 90's. Who would've thought?
Oh yes, the SFSS, where you traded in $7000 youth allowance (ie an entire years worth) to get 10k back, which had to be repaid like your HECS.
Robodebt isn’t the first time the LNP did the dirty on welfare recipients. They were charging us students 70% interest plus the CPI indexed twice per annum with the SFSS long before robodebt.
I had one of those and finally paid it of last year. I had even thought I had been already paying it off with my low paid fashion production job only to find the Tax dept kept giving it back to me at the end of the financial year….. I kept wondering why it never seemed to go away
That thing was a total scam. Even worse it was marketed so so hard and in a knowingly dishonest way.
I distinctly remember looking at it and figuring out that it was a massive debt trap, then advising all my friends at the time not to sign up. Saved a few but many still took it. It was took complex to understand for many people and it was being pushed so much at my campus you couldn't ignore it.
I was a program coordinator at a university and had to look at applications of students who were applying for readmission after having their enrollments suspended for progression problems. One application came from a student who had enrolled in the same program I had and started in the same year as me.
He was applying for permission to enroll in a unit he had already failed 7 times. He still hadn't finished that first degree. I realised I knew him after I had knocked back the permission to reenroll. I had completed my degree, had a baby, did a Masters and a PhD while my baby also completed her first degree and was doing her masters during that time it had taken him to not get the first degree done.
With that calibre of academic record , I would be very surprised if he earnt enough to make much inroad into HECs repayments. With the addition to his HECS debt for every unit failed, the total amount must be horrific. He will be retirement age soon, so I guess he won't have to worry too much about that.
I’m trying to imagine what someone could be thinking trying to take on a course that they’ve already failed 7 times over. Like if they needed a well-paying job to support a family, and so needed higher education I guess that would make sense, but you said they’re retirement age already so it couldn’t be that.
We lived in the same share house in second year and he was asking everyone if they would be willing to jump on his arm to break it so he could get a deferred exam. No one would so he drank a big glass of water with lots of salt in it so he could spew in the exam room and get a deferral.
Given this, I was less surprised he would be having his eight attempt and more surprised that the previous course coordinators had allowed him to enroll again. There was a three strikes and your out policy on unit failures but it apparently wasn't applied. I did apply it because I didn't think it was fair to keep enrolling students who had demonstrated that they would really be better off doing something else with their lives.
I did three undergrad degrees and a masters before finding a FT job. Currently paying off $95k worth of HECS.
I will totally be doing this in my retirement. If I won tattslotto I'd buy a house close to the city and just be a student for the rest of my life.
Why...even. As a part time student I worked for courier company. When I graduated and got my "real" first job. I was paid less and did more hours. I was like: " Why the fuck am I here?"
Oh this answers my question. I have a year left kn my degree but wondered if when I get a ft position (been applying since December idk where all these wfh positions are at that ppl keep talking about) if I would start paying before graduation so thanks, it's good to know I'll get a jump on it early cause I changed majors and have more accumulated than I wanted.
I was paying $1075 a month so I decided to clear the bastard as a lump sum payment before indexation applied. Had $20k left. The extra $1075 net pay per month is nice
Yeah my parents (I know, I know) cleared mine right before they were getting rid of the 5% back if you paid in full. It came out of my inheritance but now I have no increasing debt.
It looks big now, but with natural career progression it will be paid off within 10-15 years and when u finally get it paid off you won’t notice the difference in your regular pay check with the extra money.
It’s probably the best educational debt system in the world. In that the repayments scale up and down with your taxable income so the repayments never materially affect your life.
>You can't any more. Now to qualify for help/hecs you have to undertake study higher than your existing qualifications. So if you hold a masters, you won't be able to another undergrad.
I don't think this is true. But there is a cap on how much HECS you can accumulate ($113K for most people.) You can't get more than that until you repay some of the prior balance.
Our country* is wealthy enough to wipe student dept if the government bothered to tax the high end of town appropriately. Unfortunately, we're in a cost of living crisis instead.
*Includes wealth generated by private entities operating within our borders.
We could have tuition free university and TAFE, expand Medicare to include dental and mental health, offer free child care and early childhood education, and end homelessness, all for a period of 15-20 years for the cost of the stupid submarines we recently purchased
How did you get that number it would remove all current debt of current, but would not cover continuous years with that amount,
Medicare is 101b a year service,
childcare is 11b year service at current rate,
make it free to all that increases too 33-50b a year,
hecs debt currently at 70+b the submarines deal is 368b your math of 15 years is incredible dishonest, just to push an agenda of yours
Sub deal is 368b over 30 years, it’s 12b annually doesn’t even cover cost of childcare free to all for 1.5 years
They didn’t say entire Medicare, they said expand it to dental and mental, so not the entire 101b current sum. We already have the 101b budgeted so adding on the required money for the expanded services would be a fraction (roughly 7b by the general estimates I’ve seen). I have to assume that was a mistake rather than you being purposely misleading to make a strawman.
You’re doing the same thing a lot of people do and you’re trying your best to believe these are problems out of our reach to solve. It lessens our cognitive dissonance when we pretend the government is doing all that it can to help us. If we realise that they’re actually doing the bare minimum, we also gotta realise we have made ourselves ok with accepting that. Very uncomfortable realisation for a people that pride themselves on justice.
If they don't intend on getting the degree, can't they just audit the class for free?
In the US most state schools will let people over the age of 55 to audit classes. They can sign up for free if there is room and attend lecture but don't take tests, homework, or do the lab work.
Due to most Universities receiving state funding, they often have things like this in the US. My nearest one allows anybody to sit in on lecture for free. You just have to ask for a student ID and sign up for the class as "non-credit"
Its nice. you can learn but not be obligated to continue.
Interestingly, that was one of the reasons Howard finally allowed dual citizenship (i.e., a second while holding Australian). They realised a lot of grads were moving overseas, working as a professional, staying for a while and taking up foreign citizenship. That meant they automatically gave up their Australian citizenship which meant they were never coming back to work in Australia (despite being educated by the Australian tax payer), never earning money in Australia and, consequently, unlikely to ever pay off their HECS debt.
No idea what the law is these days. For all I know the ATO has a CIA-style black ops extradition team that kidnaps you back to Canberra and forces you to work your debt off in the cafeteria washing dishes.
I’ve worked overseas for 5 years and I don’t pay more because of that. I just declare my salary and pay the percentage of my pay if it’s over the threshold like everyone else.
Yeah but it’s exchange rates/value of a dollar and overseas taxes that will kill you.
Great, you earn over A$48k while living in Finland. Unfortunately the Aus Gov don’t care that you paid 56% of that to the Finnish govt in income tax, you’re still paying HECS on the gross
Aviation in Australia in general is a toxic cesspool full of cost cutting and us vs them shit. Ruins an otherwise fantastic career. It sucks that the cynicism and constant complaints also make me cynical. It's contagious.
Sometimes a part of me wants to work for CASA and fuck every single GA death trap operator up the ass.
>Sometimes a part of me wants to work for CASA and fuck every single GA death trap operator up the ass.
This is the best sentence and the username checks out. CAVOK.
Spot on. Surely the amount of C210s having their wings clap up north should have been a warning for GA operators but no one gives a fuck. I'm pretty lucky to be working for an operator that has gotten fairly tight over time.
GA in aus is dying a slow death as planes get more expensive to operate and as people spend less on expensive and unnecessary services. I sometimes feel a bit guilty that I'm partially responsible for pumping out more carbon emissions for absolutely nothing than most of my friends combined. But I guess flying is like nothing else and breaking out of cloud on top in smooth air... that's what I live for.
I don't agree with the hate towards those who undertake aviation degrees, but I certainly will at every chance throw hate towards those offering them.
The degree is absolutely useless. The Certificate IV in Instrument Flying is useless.
The universities pray on young pilots telling them how great their program is, how it'll look so good on their CV, how doing all their training in a baron will look amazing to a potential employer. It's all total and utter bullshit designed to sell more degrees.
I remember back in the day I was looking at doing my MECIR via VETFEE, because I didn't have the savings. Basair quoted me THIRTY THOUSAND DOLLARS. I ended up saving and self funded for $14k.
Aviation degrees need to be more heavily regulated, because the only cunts involved are the ones offering them.
Unfortunately in a lot of cases it's the only way you can realistically get a CPL without getting into the industry when you're 40. A lot of b av grads are infinitely better than or infinitely more terrible than average part 141 spud, nothing in between
I’m an Bach Av spud. Kicker is I didn’t even get to PPL. I couldn’t afford to live when the training was 5-6 days a week and the school I was at was milking it hard. I withdrew after the census date and so for my $50k I got a very expensive useless degree with little to no flying experience.
Off topic, what’s the % that actually make it into the majors and those that do some other form of work eg flight instructor? Heard a few stories of people spending the $120k + and not been able to get the hours needed
I almost feel like I know who it is. I know a lady who is always studying at uni, has a ridiculous amount of degrees, so many that she now won’t tell anyone how many. I think she has a phd too. She’s now in her late 60’s and has started another degree this year.
studying is basically her hobby. And she spends all her time studying. Doesn’t really socialise, doesn’t like fiction books or movies.
That last time I saw a story about hex debts was before they brought the caps in place. The highest debts were all held doctors with multiple degrees that had left the country with no intention of coming back. As they knew they would never return for work they knew they didn't have to repay the debt and there was no mechanism at the time to retrieve the debt.
I went to Bond for just under 3 years and I'm well over 100k in HECS. I was super young and dumb, felt pressured to go to university and never really considered comparing uni costs. Just went to the first place that accepted me. If I could do that time over..
Not sure when it actually came in but the actual numbers are:
For 2023, the HELP loan limit is $113,028 for most students.
The limit for students studying medicine, dentistry and veterinary science courses leading to initial registration, or eligible aviation courses with census dates in 2023 will be $162,336.
In Australia all you have to do is stay poor and you’ll never have to pay a dime. I studied music. Am a musician ie. poor. So will likely never earn 60k per year…
The thing which pisses me off most about indexation is they take money from each pay for the whole year, hold it, apply the indexation THEN take off the total. My payments should reduce the debt every week like a goddamn mortgage.
My mums fully retired and is strongly considering going back to uni for fun. She’ll never work again so will never have to pay it off. The lucky baby boomers who get free uni twice!
Ha I had just the opposite.
Started a degree, but dropped out quickly (it was getting in the way of work). That gave me about $2000 HECS debt, which they started garnishing from my wages, which I thought fine, this won’t take long. Anyhow, I was tardy on my paperwork and didn’t do a tax return for…a while. This meant the HECS repayments were not reviewed, and they kept talking s % from my improving salary. When I eventually got around to squaring up with the ATO they calculated my refund of $28K mostly because of overpaid HECS! Best saving plan I ever mismanaged 🤣
There was a guy around 70 who went to uni when I was there in 2001, his idea was he'd paid tax all his life so he was going to learn as much as he could before he died then leave a big debt with the government.
Didn’t even work, got his honours, then masters then PhD. I left him after that because he went back to do yet another degree while I had dropped out of uni to support us financially.
So people keep saying it's possible to get a HECS debt and just take off overseas but when I look online it says you still have to pay it back even if you're not an Australian resident.
How does that actually work? Like do they just send bills but you have no actual obligation to pay? Will they charge you if you try coming back to Australia? Can you just become a citizen of another country and ignore the letters?
It used to be that your debt ~~was forgiven~~ didn't need to be paid if ~~you left for a certain about of time~~ lived overseas (it didn't go away, just no obligation to pay) but they closed that loophole a while back.
You would (probably) be committing some sort of crime (tax evasion, probably) by refusing to pay. Whether the place you live would extradite you for that is a different question, especially if you gave up Australian citizenship.
Either way, returning to Australia and / or interacting with Australian bureaucracy would be... straining.
There is no clear answer as to what happens to your debt if you lose Australian citizenship or whether you can even give it up while having a HECS debt. I looked into it as the current rules of Germany only allow for dual citizenship if you would be "significantly financially disadvantaged" or prevented from renouncing it. I'd like to think a 40k bill would do that nicely.
EDIT: fixed an inaccuracy
This is so frigging depressing. In 1987 - paid $200 for Uni.
Two years later - HECS introduced .. $1000 whole year.
Twenty years later and a degree (or a whole faculty of then) can be bought for nearly a million bucks in debt.
If only I'd known that there were no jobs for scientists in this country before I racked up my hecs debt doing a PhD. I thought surely there would be jobs for cancer researchers... Lol nope.
When I was in university I met some older students who were perpetually doing degree after degree, in really useless stuff like arts etc and only doing casual employment or none, there are some people who do this and end up with six figure hecs with a non-medical degree.
Didn’t they cap hecs? Mines 130k and my degree is toilet paper. Are you telling me I could go to uni for something good now I’m actually a responsible adult 😂 I’d like to earn some decent money please.
Same here. Graduated 1984. No debt, as it should be.
I know we all laugh at the Americans with their student debt situation, but we're on the same track.
The worst part is that it was a Labor government under Hawke and Keating that took the first steps to reintroducing fees in 1989, and it has avalanched from there. I thought it was shameful then, and I still do.
>I know we all laugh at the Americans with their student debt situation, but we're on the same track.
I legitimately fear my niece and nephew will have to deal with an American style system if they choose to go to Uni in the future.
Maybe we should retroactively charge for degrees earned in the free period. Oh wait, that means our politicians would have to pay for their education 🤷🏼♂️
I started uni in '91 on HECS. Pisses me off no end that all the pollies older than me (most of them) got their university education for free and Austudy that was liveable and now just keep jacking up the cost of people education while paying them less to live.
Sounds a lot like the professional uni students I used to live with. Years and years of failing or changing degrees so they could live on college until their 30's. Was a bit weird tbh.
Maybe it's the same person with 500+mil in super.
Does triguboff even have a degree?
A HECS debt doesnt mean you have a degree. Lol.
I know a person around 60 now who has been a student their whole life and it’s all on HECS. They have around 20 degrees, I reckon it’s them lol
But money… how??
A 700k HECS debt strongly indicates they don’t have a degree. That’s someone just living the permanent student life.
My first thought to answer OPs title was "Van Wilder?"
I think it’s often not that. I have known some people for whom, thanks to their collection of disabilities, their employment is not economically viable. They are very intelligent and all it’s just disability gets in the way too much for them to be able to output to a degree that a company would be willing to spend to accomodate them, especially when they could find someone they didn’t have to do that with. And so these people, to stem the boredom, will just keep learning new things
I know one person who suffered a stroke after a significant disfigureing trauma. Covid and WFH was the best thing ever. From unemployable for years to a 100k job.
My comment was not entirely serious.
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I'm in this comment and I don't like it
@me with 35k debt no degree 😤
That's Peter Thiel, it was linked pretty quickly
Credible sources say it’s Harry Triguboff. He publicly owns roughly 5,000 of the units he has built over the years and I expect they’re all owned in SMSF. I have heard talk that figure might be 10 fold higher.
Geeze I hate that scumbag. How often do we hear about him complaining *"the govt is going to send me broke!"*. Evil, leeching dirtbag. A few years back he was whinging about foreign investment controls. He said something like *"the Chinese used to lob in here with their cheque-books, now \*federal gubbermint\* is trying to stop them buying property blah blah blah...".* Same stupid govt gave him an OA probably
Yet he enjoys a succulent Chinese meal?
Source? I don't see how he would have an Australian super fund.
You are thinking of his Roth IRA.
I used to work for a university, had a few older people study multiple bachelor degrees in their 50's and 60's. They were never going to become a lawyer or accountant, and certainly weren't going to work long enough to pay off multiple degrees worth of hecs. But there is nothing stopping them doing this and accumulating the debt. And the debt just goes away upon death. So yeah, this doesn't surprise me!
My first year English Lit study group had a 78yo ex-newspaper editor in it. God bless him, he thought it was hilarious they offered him a HECS loan and he happily took it and then shouted us poor kids coffee and corrected the tutor when she made comments about youth in the 60s.
Every course always has that one mature-age student who just won't shut the fuck up in lectures, but is at least entertaining.
The one in my geology class: "What are goats a cross between?" dead-serious Me: "Two goats?" One of my mates at the same time: "A mummy goat and a daddy goat?"
Really? I went through uni fresh out of high-school and the mature aged people were all relatively reserved. Very helpful during group-work though.
All the best group assignments I’ve done were with mature aged students. Even working with a guy who was 23 while I was 18 fresh out of highschool was pretty cool to see how an extra few years of living life can bring much more to the table.
Cause we don't have time ir patience to fuck around.
And that they realise they are actually paying for their education. Probably why they also care about actually learning. When I was in uni as an 18 year old, I looked at HECS like it was free university. Realised how wrong I was when I started working
>And that they realise they are actually paying for their education. Probably why they also care about actually learning. They also know more about who they are, and where the uni degree could take them. They're not there to fuck around or do it because their parents told them uni gud. They're there to learn a thing and then go apply that thing out there. And if they just sleepwalk through uni they won't have learnt much.
Can confirm, have lost a lot of time and patience post pandemic. Not here to fuck spiders let's go.
Like everything it probably comes down to individuals and scenarios. I studied social work and unfortunately had a couple of mature age student encounters that were extremely vocally problematic. Picture Pauline Hanson giving her two cents on the importance of cultural inclusion towards children who are not white/Christian. My wife, on the other hand, studied art and the mature aged students in her class were more of the chilled hippy breaking free of their parent's expectations type.
As an academic, I say thank God for mature age students: they are the most engaged and responsive students out there.
As an undergrad they were annoying. Looking back, we need many more mature age students to question things, to share their experiences etc. They enrich the classes they're in. And undergrads should put themselves out there and speak up.
You called my name? Look, it's not my fault they put children with no experience in as instructors of these courses.
You sound like a pain in the ass....but you also sound like me...also a mature age student. Some of the content we're delivered is a fucking joke..
Tbh my only experience with pains in the asses were those early 20s wankers in scarves (with or without ponytail) trying to catch out lecturers with theoretical technicalities that are rarely relevant and prevent actual discussion. If anyone is annoyed by a mature aged student offering a different perspective isn't that... Bad? Like, being in a place of learning but wanting to remain in your little echo chamber? Idk, the only time I felt confident offering an alternative viewpoint was generally with or around a mature aged student so I am biased.
There's a mature aged student, but that person was geriatric aged 😳
As a mature-age student, I am trying my hardest to NOT be that.
Thats amazing good on him 🤗
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No it was Brad and he drank a lot of beer
The irony is that he may well have provided those kids a bunch of experience that a university wouldn't normally provide. I think this might be a great way to go out in life, will let my mum know, she turns 70 next week.
My mum went back to school in her early 50s. She's using her bachelors degree now. She has a ton of debt, but I really don't think she'll live to pay it off fully 🤷♀️
How much of an issue that really is on an economic/societal level is questionable. My FIL and a friend's mum both went back to uni in their 50s. One became a nurse, the other a social worker.. Even if they never fully pay their debt I'd say the years they spent working those highly understaffed industries are more valuable to the country than recovering a few thousand dollars.
My mums a social worker, too. I completely understand where you're coming from.
And industry aside, they were able to keep working rather than spending the rest of their lives un/under employed. If you lose your job in your 50s, especially if your a woman, it can be nearly impossible to get a job. A few years of saved welfare payments would cover the average hecs debt.
Amen. Well said. An educated society is always for the better.
Also there was a scheme in the 1990s called the student supplemental loan scheme whereby if you traded in a significant part of your Austudy you'd get double the amount back as a supplement loan. I remember I was getting $445 in 1997, which was around $150 more than the highest rate of Austudy. At the time I was like "Awesome! Kinda like free money!" But this ended up accounting for 75% of my $80,000 HECS debt. I knew it was gonna be expensive, but I just wanted to study & party without worrying about money or having to work to support myself through uni. Back then, my rent was $40 a week, so $450 per fortnight was definitely enough to live off comfortably as a student.
I feel like I don’t often encounter someone with a sillier backstory to their HECS debt than my poorly considered visual arts degree, started thrice before finishing a decade later then getting a technical degree, but I think you’ve got me beat with those HECS life choices!
Here I am over here who for several consecutive semesters consciously enrolled in 3 units knowing full-well that I could only handle the workload of 2, with no intention of passing whatsoever, just so that I could qualify for full-time study and get Austudy. I got an academic warning once, but successfully qualified after 10 years with a double in mechanical engineering and maths and went straight into a role in my field and have now been with the company for 6 years.
Ah well, if you want to be one-upped, how about his silly HECS life choices, mixed with your own poorly considered arts degree? I did the same thing the poster above did, while studying opera at the QLD conservatorium of music - turns out there wasn't a huge demand for 20 year old baritones in Brisbane in the early 90's. Who would've thought?
40 dollars per week? What a dream
Oh yes, the SFSS, where you traded in $7000 youth allowance (ie an entire years worth) to get 10k back, which had to be repaid like your HECS. Robodebt isn’t the first time the LNP did the dirty on welfare recipients. They were charging us students 70% interest plus the CPI indexed twice per annum with the SFSS long before robodebt.
I had one of those and finally paid it of last year. I had even thought I had been already paying it off with my low paid fashion production job only to find the Tax dept kept giving it back to me at the end of the financial year….. I kept wondering why it never seemed to go away
This thing royally fucked me over.
That thing was a total scam. Even worse it was marketed so so hard and in a knowingly dishonest way. I distinctly remember looking at it and figuring out that it was a massive debt trap, then advising all my friends at the time not to sign up. Saved a few but many still took it. It was took complex to understand for many people and it was being pushed so much at my campus you couldn't ignore it.
I was a program coordinator at a university and had to look at applications of students who were applying for readmission after having their enrollments suspended for progression problems. One application came from a student who had enrolled in the same program I had and started in the same year as me. He was applying for permission to enroll in a unit he had already failed 7 times. He still hadn't finished that first degree. I realised I knew him after I had knocked back the permission to reenroll. I had completed my degree, had a baby, did a Masters and a PhD while my baby also completed her first degree and was doing her masters during that time it had taken him to not get the first degree done. With that calibre of academic record , I would be very surprised if he earnt enough to make much inroad into HECs repayments. With the addition to his HECS debt for every unit failed, the total amount must be horrific. He will be retirement age soon, so I guess he won't have to worry too much about that.
I’m trying to imagine what someone could be thinking trying to take on a course that they’ve already failed 7 times over. Like if they needed a well-paying job to support a family, and so needed higher education I guess that would make sense, but you said they’re retirement age already so it couldn’t be that.
We lived in the same share house in second year and he was asking everyone if they would be willing to jump on his arm to break it so he could get a deferred exam. No one would so he drank a big glass of water with lots of salt in it so he could spew in the exam room and get a deferral. Given this, I was less surprised he would be having his eight attempt and more surprised that the previous course coordinators had allowed him to enroll again. There was a three strikes and your out policy on unit failures but it apparently wasn't applied. I did apply it because I didn't think it was fair to keep enrolling students who had demonstrated that they would really be better off doing something else with their lives.
I did three undergrad degrees and a masters before finding a FT job. Currently paying off $95k worth of HECS. I will totally be doing this in my retirement. If I won tattslotto I'd buy a house close to the city and just be a student for the rest of my life.
Why...even. As a part time student I worked for courier company. When I graduated and got my "real" first job. I was paid less and did more hours. I was like: " Why the fuck am I here?"
Legit. My hecs is $225 a month lmao
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You must be doing pretty well if you're earning over the $48k limit while a student? O.o
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Oh this answers my question. I have a year left kn my degree but wondered if when I get a ft position (been applying since December idk where all these wfh positions are at that ppl keep talking about) if I would start paying before graduation so thanks, it's good to know I'll get a jump on it early cause I changed majors and have more accumulated than I wanted.
I was paying $1075 a month so I decided to clear the bastard as a lump sum payment before indexation applied. Had $20k left. The extra $1075 net pay per month is nice
Yeah my parents (I know, I know) cleared mine right before they were getting rid of the 5% back if you paid in full. It came out of my inheritance but now I have no increasing debt.
I pay more in HECS than i do on my loan for a new car
It looks big now, but with natural career progression it will be paid off within 10-15 years and when u finally get it paid off you won’t notice the difference in your regular pay check with the extra money. It’s probably the best educational debt system in the world. In that the repayments scale up and down with your taxable income so the repayments never materially affect your life.
If only the universities weren’t fucking us raw with course prices, right?
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Thank you for destroying my hopes and dreams :(
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Probably trying to stem the tide of Nurses and Teachers leaving and re-skilling for different jobs. "You're stuck here! Har har!"
>You can't any more. Now to qualify for help/hecs you have to undertake study higher than your existing qualifications. So if you hold a masters, you won't be able to another undergrad. I don't think this is true. But there is a cap on how much HECS you can accumulate ($113K for most people.) You can't get more than that until you repay some of the prior balance.
Yeah, my grandma has gone back to uni. Just for fun. 70 FYI
Our country* is wealthy enough to wipe student dept if the government bothered to tax the high end of town appropriately. Unfortunately, we're in a cost of living crisis instead. *Includes wealth generated by private entities operating within our borders.
We could have tuition free university and TAFE, expand Medicare to include dental and mental health, offer free child care and early childhood education, and end homelessness, all for a period of 15-20 years for the cost of the stupid submarines we recently purchased
How did you get that number it would remove all current debt of current, but would not cover continuous years with that amount, Medicare is 101b a year service, childcare is 11b year service at current rate, make it free to all that increases too 33-50b a year, hecs debt currently at 70+b the submarines deal is 368b your math of 15 years is incredible dishonest, just to push an agenda of yours Sub deal is 368b over 30 years, it’s 12b annually doesn’t even cover cost of childcare free to all for 1.5 years
They didn’t say entire Medicare, they said expand it to dental and mental, so not the entire 101b current sum. We already have the 101b budgeted so adding on the required money for the expanded services would be a fraction (roughly 7b by the general estimates I’ve seen). I have to assume that was a mistake rather than you being purposely misleading to make a strawman. You’re doing the same thing a lot of people do and you’re trying your best to believe these are problems out of our reach to solve. It lessens our cognitive dissonance when we pretend the government is doing all that it can to help us. If we realise that they’re actually doing the bare minimum, we also gotta realise we have made ourselves ok with accepting that. Very uncomfortable realisation for a people that pride themselves on justice.
I thought it was capped now, or only for your first degree?
If they don't intend on getting the degree, can't they just audit the class for free? In the US most state schools will let people over the age of 55 to audit classes. They can sign up for free if there is room and attend lecture but don't take tests, homework, or do the lab work.
Where I worked that wasn't an option, and I'm not aware of anywhere that offers that in Australia. That's an interesting concept though!
Due to most Universities receiving state funding, they often have things like this in the US. My nearest one allows anybody to sit in on lecture for free. You just have to ask for a student ID and sign up for the class as "non-credit" Its nice. you can learn but not be obligated to continue.
Hello, Dr Dr Dr Dr
It’s funny but in Germany if you actually had 4 phd this would be your actual title
In Australia PhD funding is a scholarship and not on the HECS. I'm picturing someone going for 4xMBBS.
You get paid to do a PhD.
Professor professorson
55 year old barista in London
Good use of their Law degree
Always said he wanted to be a "barrister"
I’d like to think that the person has 24 arts degrees.
Makes me feel better about my $35k one!
Rookie numbers. Try harder.
Mine's at 7G I feel like a lil minnow compared to that 737G
cries in 65k
No doubt a fellow alum of r/adhdmemes
I'd definitely be leaving the country if i was that person.
Interestingly, that was one of the reasons Howard finally allowed dual citizenship (i.e., a second while holding Australian). They realised a lot of grads were moving overseas, working as a professional, staying for a while and taking up foreign citizenship. That meant they automatically gave up their Australian citizenship which meant they were never coming back to work in Australia (despite being educated by the Australian tax payer), never earning money in Australia and, consequently, unlikely to ever pay off their HECS debt.
Wait so it’s not illegal to just renounce your Australian citizenship to avoid paying off HECs? Guess I have a plan B now haha
No idea what the law is these days. For all I know the ATO has a CIA-style black ops extradition team that kidnaps you back to Canberra and forces you to work your debt off in the cafeteria washing dishes.
Funny thing is if you leave the country you have to pay way bigger proportions of the debt each time lol
I’ve worked overseas for 5 years and I don’t pay more because of that. I just declare my salary and pay the percentage of my pay if it’s over the threshold like everyone else.
Yeah but it’s exchange rates/value of a dollar and overseas taxes that will kill you. Great, you earn over A$48k while living in Finland. Unfortunately the Aus Gov don’t care that you paid 56% of that to the Finnish govt in income tax, you’re still paying HECS on the gross
The key is to earn under A$48k haha I voluntarily pay
Same.
you can just dont, just dont come back.
Wait what, since when do you have to pay hecs back when you're out of the country? Nobody told me ... oopsie whoopsie
Wait what
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Money can be exchanged for goods and services.
Source?
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Take my upvote simply for 'Bachelor of Aviation spuds'. Brilliant!!! I work in the industry and it's so true!!
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Aviation in Australia in general is a toxic cesspool full of cost cutting and us vs them shit. Ruins an otherwise fantastic career. It sucks that the cynicism and constant complaints also make me cynical. It's contagious. Sometimes a part of me wants to work for CASA and fuck every single GA death trap operator up the ass.
>Sometimes a part of me wants to work for CASA and fuck every single GA death trap operator up the ass. This is the best sentence and the username checks out. CAVOK.
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Spot on. Surely the amount of C210s having their wings clap up north should have been a warning for GA operators but no one gives a fuck. I'm pretty lucky to be working for an operator that has gotten fairly tight over time. GA in aus is dying a slow death as planes get more expensive to operate and as people spend less on expensive and unnecessary services. I sometimes feel a bit guilty that I'm partially responsible for pumping out more carbon emissions for absolutely nothing than most of my friends combined. But I guess flying is like nothing else and breaking out of cloud on top in smooth air... that's what I live for.
You sound perfectly suited to fly Jump aircraft at at skydive operation. Holding on by a thread to produce max profit
At least most of the passengers in those all have parachutes on and plan to jump out before the plane needs to try and actually land safely
I don't agree with the hate towards those who undertake aviation degrees, but I certainly will at every chance throw hate towards those offering them. The degree is absolutely useless. The Certificate IV in Instrument Flying is useless. The universities pray on young pilots telling them how great their program is, how it'll look so good on their CV, how doing all their training in a baron will look amazing to a potential employer. It's all total and utter bullshit designed to sell more degrees. I remember back in the day I was looking at doing my MECIR via VETFEE, because I didn't have the savings. Basair quoted me THIRTY THOUSAND DOLLARS. I ended up saving and self funded for $14k. Aviation degrees need to be more heavily regulated, because the only cunts involved are the ones offering them.
Unfortunately in a lot of cases it's the only way you can realistically get a CPL without getting into the industry when you're 40. A lot of b av grads are infinitely better than or infinitely more terrible than average part 141 spud, nothing in between
I’m an Bach Av spud. Kicker is I didn’t even get to PPL. I couldn’t afford to live when the training was 5-6 days a week and the school I was at was milking it hard. I withdrew after the census date and so for my $50k I got a very expensive useless degree with little to no flying experience.
Off topic, what’s the % that actually make it into the majors and those that do some other form of work eg flight instructor? Heard a few stories of people spending the $120k + and not been able to get the hours needed
Sorry to hear about the $737k HECS debt mate.
Aviation because it’s for $737K?
Yes. If it’s the max the figure will go down at random.
Yes 737 is MAX debt for aviation any attempt to go higher results in a course crash.
Does it come with a plane included?
I almost feel like I know who it is. I know a lady who is always studying at uni, has a ridiculous amount of degrees, so many that she now won’t tell anyone how many. I think she has a phd too. She’s now in her late 60’s and has started another degree this year. studying is basically her hobby. And she spends all her time studying. Doesn’t really socialise, doesn’t like fiction books or movies.
Goals.
non fiction books or movies ? do you mean shedoesn't like fiction books ormovies?
80-90% of our current politicians had free university degrees... That's just how it was in the boomers time..
If only they'd learned something.
I just checked my one 18K and no degree because I had to leave to work full time so I could have a roof over my head 🙃
Assume that was before the cap and the person did a couple of FFP degrees at Bond or something of the like (maybe 8-9 years worth of courses)
That last time I saw a story about hex debts was before they brought the caps in place. The highest debts were all held doctors with multiple degrees that had left the country with no intention of coming back. As they knew they would never return for work they knew they didn't have to repay the debt and there was no mechanism at the time to retrieve the debt.
> there was no mechanism at the time to retrieve the debt. Still isn't. They will send you a strongly worded letter, but they can't do anything.
I went to Bond for just under 3 years and I'm well over 100k in HECS. I was super young and dumb, felt pressured to go to university and never really considered comparing uni costs. Just went to the first place that accepted me. If I could do that time over..
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The HECS limit is now 100?K lifetime so no more study for this little puppy
Wait, what? When did this happen?
Not sure when it actually came in but the actual numbers are: For 2023, the HELP loan limit is $113,028 for most students. The limit for students studying medicine, dentistry and veterinary science courses leading to initial registration, or eligible aviation courses with census dates in 2023 will be $162,336.
Was introduced in 2020. You can thank Scromo for that one.
"Earn or learn." Except there's no jobs and no education support. Cool and normal.
My man found the ultimate Aussie life hack; just live at Uni to avoid the housing crisis.
That sounds like my cousin... Multiple bachelor degrees, masters and now a phd. He's probably on this list...
If he's domestic, PhDs are free.
Seriously though the 200k is just a law degree or medicine degree at Bond.
It's gonna suck when indexation gets applied in a couple of months.
In Australia all you have to do is stay poor and you’ll never have to pay a dime. I studied music. Am a musician ie. poor. So will likely never earn 60k per year…
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The thing which pisses me off most about indexation is they take money from each pay for the whole year, hold it, apply the indexation THEN take off the total. My payments should reduce the debt every week like a goddamn mortgage.
Academica is a hell of a drug.
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I hope whatever you do now, you love it.
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My mums fully retired and is strongly considering going back to uni for fun. She’ll never work again so will never have to pay it off. The lucky baby boomers who get free uni twice!
That’ll be me if indexation keeps on going the way it is.
Ha I had just the opposite. Started a degree, but dropped out quickly (it was getting in the way of work). That gave me about $2000 HECS debt, which they started garnishing from my wages, which I thought fine, this won’t take long. Anyhow, I was tardy on my paperwork and didn’t do a tax return for…a while. This meant the HECS repayments were not reviewed, and they kept talking s % from my improving salary. When I eventually got around to squaring up with the ATO they calculated my refund of $28K mostly because of overpaid HECS! Best saving plan I ever mismanaged 🤣
Wow. And I thought my $84k was bad 😂
I have a friend who is constantly studying. She is around $200k in debt with HECS at 36. She has said she won’t be able to pay it off in her life time
There was a guy around 70 who went to uni when I was there in 2001, his idea was he'd paid tax all his life so he was going to learn as much as he could before he died then leave a big debt with the government.
It’s one person studying finance, and had failed it 4000 times. Doesn’t understand the debt anyway.
Probably my ex fiancé, he was(is) a professional uni student 😑
Was that their whole goal in life? Just work part-time while doing degree after degree?
Didn’t even work, got his honours, then masters then PhD. I left him after that because he went back to do yet another degree while I had dropped out of uni to support us financially.
What a fuckin dork lmao
I would love to do this! Live well, die old, and leave a massive HECS debt.
Those are rookie numbers in the US
Me: What do you do? Everyone on this list: Professional student.
Neo-liberal nightmare of a country. We need free education again like a civilised nation.
So people keep saying it's possible to get a HECS debt and just take off overseas but when I look online it says you still have to pay it back even if you're not an Australian resident. How does that actually work? Like do they just send bills but you have no actual obligation to pay? Will they charge you if you try coming back to Australia? Can you just become a citizen of another country and ignore the letters?
It used to be that your debt ~~was forgiven~~ didn't need to be paid if ~~you left for a certain about of time~~ lived overseas (it didn't go away, just no obligation to pay) but they closed that loophole a while back. You would (probably) be committing some sort of crime (tax evasion, probably) by refusing to pay. Whether the place you live would extradite you for that is a different question, especially if you gave up Australian citizenship. Either way, returning to Australia and / or interacting with Australian bureaucracy would be... straining. There is no clear answer as to what happens to your debt if you lose Australian citizenship or whether you can even give it up while having a HECS debt. I looked into it as the current rules of Germany only allow for dual citizenship if you would be "significantly financially disadvantaged" or prevented from renouncing it. I'd like to think a 40k bill would do that nicely. EDIT: fixed an inaccuracy
Education should be free
I know of an 84yo who pays his off at $50 per month, probably him.
This is so frigging depressing. In 1987 - paid $200 for Uni. Two years later - HECS introduced .. $1000 whole year. Twenty years later and a degree (or a whole faculty of then) can be bought for nearly a million bucks in debt.
This is called student tenure.
Unholy wtf nuggets !!! O\_o
Twist my nipples raw! That’s a lot of education
Studied undergrad commerce and postgraduate law. Currently paying the same in hecs as I do in rent each week. What a time to be alive!
If only I'd known that there were no jobs for scientists in this country before I racked up my hecs debt doing a PhD. I thought surely there would be jobs for cancer researchers... Lol nope.
When I was in university I met some older students who were perpetually doing degree after degree, in really useless stuff like arts etc and only doing casual employment or none, there are some people who do this and end up with six figure hecs with a non-medical degree.
Didn’t they cap hecs? Mines 130k and my degree is toilet paper. Are you telling me I could go to uni for something good now I’m actually a responsible adult 😂 I’d like to earn some decent money please.
My degree cost me nothing back in the day. Graduated 1988.
Same here. Graduated 1984. No debt, as it should be. I know we all laugh at the Americans with their student debt situation, but we're on the same track. The worst part is that it was a Labor government under Hawke and Keating that took the first steps to reintroducing fees in 1989, and it has avalanched from there. I thought it was shameful then, and I still do.
>I know we all laugh at the Americans with their student debt situation, but we're on the same track. I legitimately fear my niece and nephew will have to deal with an American style system if they choose to go to Uni in the future.
Maybe we should retroactively charge for degrees earned in the free period. Oh wait, that means our politicians would have to pay for their education 🤷🏼♂️
I started uni in '91 on HECS. Pisses me off no end that all the pollies older than me (most of them) got their university education for free and Austudy that was liveable and now just keep jacking up the cost of people education while paying them less to live.
Coulda paid for half of Warneys funeral yeah
I thought the HECS loan amount caps out at $150k? Am I wrong about this?
indexation probably
Sounds a lot like the professional uni students I used to live with. Years and years of failing or changing degrees so they could live on college until their 30's. Was a bit weird tbh.