Fees may put tertiary study 'out of reach'

FAIRFAX

STUDY COSTS: Some course fee could rise by 10 per cent or more if the fee maxima was lifted completely, Chair of the Vice-Chancellors' Committee, Derek McCormack, says.

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The cost of tertiary study is rising and Government changes could make it dearer still.

Critics are worried spiralling costs will take higher study out of reach for some people.

"You'll get only the children of wealthy families going on to be doctors and dentists," Labour tertiary education spokeswoman Maryan Street said.

"It will make it harder for people who don't have resources to get into degree programmes which lead to high-paying occupations."

At present, the Government sets the maximum fees that can be charged for each different course every year – a policy called the fee maxima.

As well as the caps in different courses there is also an across-the-board maxima on annual increases set at 5 per cent.

But Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce said the fee maxima was having a distorting effect on the price of some of the most expensive courses.

"If you allow some fees to go up and other fees you put a lid on, then you're going to distort prices and the cost of courses is going to bear no relation to [actual] cost," Mr Joyce said.

"I think at some point you've just got to have a look at that."

Holding down what universities were allowed to charge could lead to top courses such as aviation and some medical courses being withdrawn by providers because it would eventually become uneconomic to run them, Mr Joyce said.

It was an "open question" whether the distorting effect of the fee maxima would remain.

"One option would be simply to say we won't have a specific fee maxima for a particular course but we will have a maximum increase each year for all courses," he said.

An Education Ministry report on the affordability of tertiary study showed that in 2008, the average cost of student fees for all tertiary students was $3723 – 4.1 times the average weekly wage, up from 3.6 times the average weekly wage in 2003.

For university students, the course cost ratio grew from 4.9 to 5.2 times the average weekly income between 2003 and 2008.

Chair of the Vice-Chancellors' Committee, Derek McCormack, said if the maxima was lifted completely some courses could rise by 10 per cent or more.

However, vice-chancellors accepted that there would always be some controls on what could be charged.