What the HECS?
Added 2025-01-05 08:11:23 +0000 UTC[Very Early Access]
Hello Patrons,
This one's a little bit different. We're not sure how people will even respond to this video if we end up publishing it so we're very interested in hearing your thoughts on it.
Jordan takes a look at HECS in general and the recent refund to HECS, what he comes up with will probably surprise you because it definitely surprised him. Let us know what you think about this one in the comments!
Thanks for your continued support, we'll be putting out a thread during to week to see what you want to see next on Patreon. We've got some long videos filmed which are being edited right now.
Happy New Year,
The FJ Crew
Comments
how can he when he puts all of his money into repairing his 2004 toyota camry
Noturavg_pig
2025-02-26 07:01:07 +0000 UTCJordan you haven't paid off your HECS debt?!
Lauren Howlett
2025-01-12 06:57:24 +0000 UTCOne part of this story that is missing for me is the defunding of universities that has occurred alongside the introduction of fees. This has lead to the degradation of the university system, quality of teaching, staff on short term contracts. The broader financial constraints meaning most people have to work and study full time. These factors have really destroyed the quality of education . I question the salaries allocated to vice chancellors - would like to know more about these factors. This is true for TAFE as well which has essentially been partially privatised , the quality of courses and of availability of apprenticeships has really diminished. Second. On HECS debt itself . If you are unable to work due to illness ….or pregnancy / having young children. Your HECS debt continues to rise whilst you cannot work. A real disadvantage once you return to work. If they’d like less financial disparity and future homelessness for women, this would be a simple way of ensuring they aren’t paying more for their education than their male counterparts . Thankyougoodbye.
France
2025-01-09 07:13:23 +0000 UTCI agree with the main point of the video but still think that the Hecs reduction is a good policy. The point of Hecs is to be a low interest government backed loan for education, in theory it's supposed to be the cheapest loan most people are ever going to get. But in the last few years hecs hasn't actually been a cheap loan because inflation is higher than interest rates, defeating the purpose of Hecs in the first place. The Government is simply looking at a good system giving results opposite to what its designed to do and stepping in to addess it. I also think its incredibly on brand for the Greens, the party of upper middle class young people, to want to return to a fee free university system where only upper middle class people can attend. but that wont stop them from morally grandstanding.
connor
2025-01-08 09:40:07 +0000 UTCFair enough about indexation, but why does the government hold my HECS payments until I submit my tax return? If it’s coming out of each pay check, why isn’t it being deposited to the ATO every fortnight similar to how super is? Is there some rule about only depositing once a year? It’s annoying that my debt is indexed before my payment for the year is deposited.
Russell Coight
2025-01-08 08:23:09 +0000 UTCI will also add that under the Liberals, they tried to replace TAFE with more dodgy private training/tertiary facilities
Atallah Khoury աթալլահ
2025-01-07 09:33:31 +0000 UTCStill waiting for that "Dear Everyone" segment
Atallah Khoury աթալլահ
2025-01-07 07:58:52 +0000 UTCYou've crossed the line this time, FJ!
ObscureBug
2025-01-07 06:48:57 +0000 UTCJordies talks like this would be massively unpopular in his fanbase. But most of his audience who went to uni should know most of this. Who signs up for something that used to be worth the deposit of a house without knowing the terms? I knew what I was signing up for, the best value loan I'll ever get. The real problem with free uni is that in practice it's the first thing that would get gutted by an LNP government trying to reduce red tape, and who knows how fucked the replacement system would be. We're lucky Keating did it before Howard that's for sure.
GBoker
2025-01-06 05:12:54 +0000 UTCThis is the "Why don't you go and get a job" in youtube form. Funny and brutal. Just the way I like it.
Rhys Carman
2025-01-06 02:36:47 +0000 UTCthe uni grads do a good enough job proving your point that they're spoiled brats without being baited into it, but it's still fun to do. probably could have bitched in more detail about dan tehan's fucked uni fee structure change that you said was done under morrison, but otherwise it's sounding good as is.
Jack
2025-01-06 02:31:21 +0000 UTCChuck it up, fuck the haters. That demographic’s main concern is housing right now, and their vote will go to the greens anyway. The reality check will bring a few back to the only party capable of progressive change in this country, the Australian Labor Party.
George
2025-01-06 00:59:23 +0000 UTCWell yes, there is wage stagnation. I am more pointing out how inflation is tracked, and it being disconnected from wages. It could be tracked another way. In fact, I think part of the labor reform is to tie the indexation to two different measures, and use the one that is giving the smallest increase at the time. So we'll have to see if this keeps hecs debt in line with wage increases or not.
Matthew Ryan
2025-01-06 00:27:12 +0000 UTCThat's because most people aren't in a union and 10years has been coalition rule not a Labor Government. Gotta have support for wage raise from the bottom and the top to get them moving.
Andrew Stanley
2025-01-06 00:24:09 +0000 UTCHow are tax payers penalised ? The tax is only on people using the HECS scheme. I also think high schools and universities should be supporting student more to get degrees that are a useful and b what they want to do. Lack of research shouldn't be a defining factor in government support when they choices are being made without help be kids that haven't been in university. The system almost requires them to have been through it to get the best out of it.
Andrew Stanley
2025-01-06 00:22:43 +0000 UTCI think people should just push for what is in their interest. You shouldn't have to make any further argument for free uni, than "it's good for me". I tend to notice that it's really only working class or middle class people that get shamed for being "entitled" and always asked to be "fair" and think of the "collective good". I don't see the same sentiments get applied to CEOs and billionaires. Trust me, all they are doing is what's good for them. You should be pushing for the same.
Matthew Ryan
2025-01-06 00:08:01 +0000 UTCThis is the one complaint my partner has about HECS, that indexation on it occurs before the year's repayments are counted against it, so you're paying "interest" by being charged indexation on already repayed money. Otherwise he thinks it's a brilliant system that should not be altered.
TC
2025-01-06 00:06:22 +0000 UTCCertainly, not nearly as bad as the US situation. But at the same time, simply dismissing it as indexation and the price of money misses a big problem. That is, that the whole inflation system is a bit fraudulent in the first place, given it's been growing faster than wages for about 10 years I think?
Matthew Ryan
2025-01-06 00:02:13 +0000 UTCGet in a punch up with Adu, do it for the bit
Alexander Freeman
2025-01-05 23:09:44 +0000 UTCNothing better than being a tradie, telling wankers who belittle those who haven't been ti uni that I'm a millionaire and had my TAFE reimbursed by my boss 😂
Mick
2025-01-05 22:42:17 +0000 UTCI was fortunate (in a way) to go to university in Wales where they have money set aside for grants that cover half of tuition fees. That meant my loans were smaller, so I only had half the debt compared to people in England. Plus, I still only had to start paying it back once I was over the earning threshold.
Alex Edwards
2025-01-05 21:47:49 +0000 UTCDegrees should be assessed for 'use to society' and surcharged accordingly (yes you can do your degree on gender issues in left-handed basket weaving, but there will be a 20% surcharge, which has to be paid during the degree) and the double dipping degrees should be banned unless actually proven to be complementary.
Keith Marlow
2025-01-05 21:14:58 +0000 UTC100%, this 'crossover' between TAFE and Uni is helping neither. You end up with useless degrees on the one hand and insufficient trades on the other.
Keith Marlow
2025-01-05 21:05:13 +0000 UTCI'm not Australian, and my Australian Cousins are tradies. Here in Switzerland the University fees are pretty low, most of the cost is borne by the state, the cost to students is around 700-1000 AUD per semester. It seems to me that HECS is a system that is working fair enough by not adding interest and by requiring payback only once a certain income is reached. If we had that here I'd be paying back by now and wouldn't regard it as unfair. However I wonder if Fee-Free wouldn't be better still, reducing disincentives on university studies even further. The downsides you reconted of the seventies where Unis couldn't invest sounds more like an issue of not enough money being invested by the state, but that's also not an inherent issue of the funding system. Maybe HECS is less politically vulnerable to budget cuts though, I could see that. Of course I agree that fee-free TAFE is way more important, no question about that.
Joel Busch
2025-01-05 18:04:23 +0000 UTCI’m a big fan of HECS, as opposed to fee-free tuition. Making it easier to go to Uni if people want to so the population can up skill, genius policy. But I think fee-free tafe does it better for the reasons you outline here and in previous videos, and tradies are on such good coin now. One thing my friends call me an ‘elitist gate-keeper of education’ for is that Uni promotes critical thinking, analysis of bias etc that is pretty integral for society now, that you wouldn’t get in a brickies cert, and the only reason I can be so analytical and be able to understand and advocate for public policy that benefits me is because I’ve gone to Uni. How do you promote those same thinking skills through the TAFE system? Give everyone a copy of Manufacturing Consent on enrolment?
ryan-bagge
2025-01-05 16:14:45 +0000 UTCHECS paid for my medical degree and I paid it back within 5 years. The only downside was when the "dollar for dollar" incentive repayments were cut (ie. volunatary repayments were essentially doubled, rather than a regular garnish to income).
Dr Joel Wren
2025-01-05 14:36:15 +0000 UTCOnly problem with HECS is that they garnish your pay when you earn enough, but don’t immediately apply the money to your debt until the EOFY and after they index your debt up. Seems disingenuous to me at present.
Xael1
2025-01-05 13:22:11 +0000 UTCI finally don't feel alone in this view. I have 100k in HECS debt, but my degrees have significantly increased my earning potential. I am thankful to the Australian taxpayer for funding my commonwealth supported place, and am happy to pay my HECS back. I've noticed nearly no one arguing on the internet understands indexation. Which sucks, because if you are complaining about it, then you should have a higher education. The Australia Institute has a line that's been commented a few times "the government collects more money from HECS than it does from the petroleum resource rent tax" It's a meaningless statistic, the government does not make money on HECS. In ideal circumstances it would be break even, but when most undergrad degrees are commonwealth supported, they are getting a fraction of their investment back via HECS. The rest is by investing in YOU *Points to reader*
Liam Jones
2025-01-05 12:41:59 +0000 UTCJordies, I'm entering my late 30's and spent high school playing CS 1.5. Poor education decisions are multi-generational.
Russell Miller
2025-01-05 12:24:36 +0000 UTCI am so glad you did some research on HECS since your chat with Ali on the pod a few weeks ago.
DMK
2025-01-05 12:08:55 +0000 UTCHECS has always been such a great tool that I never felt like I would be financially cooked once I feel ready to enter my degree. I was at the tail end of the subsidised Tafe programs and saw just how shit TAFE was becoming right before I finish my diploma. Good teachers left, bunch of units got swiped off the course book and alot of career pathways basically went radio silence once Tafe quality dropped. I was lucky enough to enter into the workforce in enviro management right after Tafe and now getting pay high enough salary that I can easily clear out my HECS debt in three years time. School needs to do more on offering diverse range of higher education options and stop pretending TAFE is a lesser option for high school students. If you're not ready to commit four years of your life on a course you truly believe in, then uni is not for you yet.
Dob WoLF
2025-01-05 12:01:21 +0000 UTCAnyone who has never learn about the American college tuition fees or any South Asian countries' uni loan structure will think HECS sucks.
Dob WoLF
2025-01-05 11:53:13 +0000 UTCYou know I agree with you about TAFE, but given how broad Uni pathways is and the years you need to be committed to the major you choose, I think it is also fair to say that if you didn't give the time and attention to weight in the risk and benefits of whatever major you choose to commit 4 years out of your life, why should the tax payers be penalised for your lack of research?
Dob WoLF
2025-01-05 11:51:54 +0000 UTCYeah the Free Tafe courses things has really made a difference for me. Originally I couldn't afford the course I planned to sign up for to get out of the Security Industry but there is a Free TAFE course for it which should at the very least help lead to some more profitable employment.
Nicholas Crayford
2025-01-05 11:46:42 +0000 UTCCongrats to you 🥳
Dollface
2025-01-05 11:35:05 +0000 UTCVideo is good, release it. I haven't been to Uni. I don't believe the fees should be indexed or included as a debt against housing or other loans. And yes wage inflation should take care of the fee to reduce that Uni fee to a 70's equivalent of $50. Keep up the great videos.
Brad
2025-01-05 11:30:28 +0000 UTCThe tale telling part with the book was hilarious.
Ahmad Mostamandi
2025-01-05 11:00:06 +0000 UTCNah point made. Changed my mind mr Jordies
Brandon Anderson
2025-01-05 10:53:38 +0000 UTCIt's a sensible video, heck it's probably an important video. But some key points are missing. There's a middle ground of people who ARE earning enough to pay it back, and yet still indexation is more than they can afford to pay it back, so it's lost income and the debt still grows. Also, it's treated like a debt when applying for loans. So there's a point where lower income people trying to get out of poverty becomes much harder. I reckon it's an important video, you SHOULD talk about this. But maybe more nuance or broader understanding will help.
Tiarna Pebz
2025-01-05 10:50:17 +0000 UTCIt is unfortunate that many universities are becoming glorified TAFEs. They create 'job-ready' courses that take students away from TAFEs and in the process reduce the number of hours available for practical application of the information supplied. Having done and taught courses at both types of institution, I am aghast at the paucity of actual skills that many university graduates acquire in their training, and the way that universities continually lower their entry criteria in order to attract students who then accumulate HECS debts when those students potentially would have been better off studying at a TAFE and developing the kinds of practical skills that enable them to pursue a career.
Karin Stokes
2025-01-05 10:34:32 +0000 UTCI think HECS sucks because its seen as a debt when it comes to loans. If they made it so that didn't count ( treat it like a tax rather then a Debt) then I can see the argument for it. I also think Uni's need to be not run like businesses which they are currently. Also Gough Whitlam made TAFE because he saw the gap in University learning and trade learning. TAFE being free is the best thing, it should be for all TAFE courses though and pushed as a way to the workforce.
Andrew Stanley
2025-01-05 09:59:50 +0000 UTCMy favourite FJ content is when he's berating and paying out people who disagree with him. Maybe release this video and have a special stream of Jordan answering the comments with his usual belidgerent style? Content gold
Joshua Tucker
2025-01-05 09:51:50 +0000 UTCYeah but knowing why means I can talk on it on a deeper level than "it's the liberals fault", that might be true but it's not very convincing to hear
Meandery
2025-01-05 09:45:20 +0000 UTCI know HECS was good but that was just reading about the most basic stuff that it did. The whole thing about Free Uni essentially just being Trickle Up economics was new to me and very cool to learn. While I don't know anyone who thinks HECS is bad (I don't know many people at all tbh), I do very much believe this video has a lesson everyone should learn.
Samuel Hanman
2025-01-05 09:33:18 +0000 UTCThis makes sense. Tafes are gutted now and not many competent tradie wants to be a teacher, the equipment and tooling available is woeful and they have "experts" streamlining the system to pump out "tradesman* quicker. In my experience with apprentices, it just let's the ones who don't want to try coast through Thier time and the ones who want to know more get limited by lack of staff and information at Tafe. They put the burden on the employer that has less time to train now because every one is understaffed or businesses are so worried about efficiency that quality drops. I'm just unsure how to fix that side of things. Since the privatisation of government services such as electricity and water which caused the rise of the contractor, meaning we now have no big scale companies employing apprentices and letting them make mistakes to learn, or take time to master Thier craft, does result in the low quality checked out tradies. If you're switched on you get promoted off the tools pretty fast and then there's one less competent tradie working. So the answer is money to fix training. And hecs stops people wasting the unis time in courses that don't contribute to society at least? If this goes public, slow the facts down on the hecs debt % charged. And maybe cover the hecs affecting ability to buy a house? Also love the new editing with the book and such. Hilarious.
Alex Isaac
2025-01-05 09:27:34 +0000 UTCProbably would’ve been helpful to have more elaboration
Toto2468@
2025-01-05 09:25:15 +0000 UTCI have a mate who paid off his engineering degree one year after finishing. Of course he was working a job all the way through uni and didn't take on the housing rental debt etc.
Alex Isaac
2025-01-05 09:17:05 +0000 UTCHe did say scomo did that.
Alex Isaac
2025-01-05 09:15:28 +0000 UTCI can attest to that. I did both Tafe (2010) and Uni. My grades we'rent good enough since I was rawdogging ADHD. I still to this day I use the shit I learnt in Tafe. Both my Tafe and Uni degrees are in IT.
Dale Watson
2025-01-05 09:03:18 +0000 UTCFor emphasis... Raygun is a social studies academic at Macquarie University who's thesis was on the gender issues in breakdancing... In Australia. She went to Barker College in Hornsby (upper class private school). I'm a tradesperson in the middle of a degree. There's absolutely some rorting of the system going on to pump up the revenue of the institution at the expense of the taxpayers by compulsory courses on vaguely-related subjects (that conservatives would call woke), and essentially doubling up of other subjects to turn a 3 year degree into a 4 year degree. I'm fine with everyone paying for their degrees as it affords opportunities that a trade doesn't, and allows people to work in air-conditioned offices with the main work health and safety issue being sore wrists from holding a mouse incorrectly. It might also make a degree in basket weaving less appealing to people.
Putz
2025-01-05 08:56:43 +0000 UTCFirst Uni degree should be free. But HECS is the next best thing, sure beats the American system.
Paul
2025-01-05 08:55:14 +0000 UTCWell done, congratulations 🎉
Chel
2025-01-05 08:53:52 +0000 UTCI would of liked to hear why university costs are so inflated, It feels like you spent the video focusing focusing on how targeting HECS is the wrong thing to do if you want to incease access to university but I don't feel like I have a better understanding of what should be done, Like I get HECS has a perception issue but what university policy would be good then?
Meandery
2025-01-05 08:52:51 +0000 UTCVideo recommendation you should do a video about Paul Keating and the banking sector and is economic policies and then just then title it someone like neoliberal with the photo of Keating
Toto2468@
2025-01-05 08:44:42 +0000 UTCHe fixed index station and the election promises to tack 20% off your hex debt
Toto2468@
2025-01-05 08:40:28 +0000 UTCInteresting perspective that I've never heard before. I did always hear from the Greens in university going "well it was Paul Keating that stopped university from being free" and didn't really have an argument against that. I think this video could be improved if you elaborated on the reasons why HECS is better than free university. The only real point is "mostly middle class people went to university when it was free" and your point about universities tailoring courses to lower-income people because of HECS. I think if you elaborated on that point it could make the video stronger.
Exobyte Monolith
2025-01-05 08:28:40 +0000 UTCI finally paid off my HECS last financial, after 9 years of work. The program gave me the opportunity to go to University, which I otherwise would not have. But if it took me 9 years, I wonder how other degrees are doing. I did medicine by the way.
Viktor Ko
2025-01-05 08:28:01 +0000 UTC
