David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Students, parents, teachers and other interested community members from across the mid-North Coast had the opportunity to put forward their ideas on how the Commonwealth government can better support local students in gaining a university degree. Recently I had the Chair of the Senate Standing Committee on Education and Employment, Senator Bridget McKenzie, in the electorate of Lyne. We met with representatives from the departments of education and social services and hosted the regional higher education forum in Taree. We had a very good attendance of over 20 people, including aspiring students and their parents, as well as school leaders—namely, principals—career advisers, university members and general community members.

The interim report that the committee has put together already has found that regional and remote students face additional barriers to accessing higher education—namely, costs, distance from education, their school experiences and aspirations and their preparedness, as well as the challenges of individual socioeconomic status.

Postcode should not determine whether a young person can secure a university place at the university of their choice. Young people from regional and remote communities make up 27 per cent of Australia's population, yet they only represent just over 20 per cent of Australia's university population. That simply is not good enough. Securing a university degree is important to any young person because graduates earn, on average, 75 per cent more over the life of their careers. It is also vitally important for regional and remote communities to have doctors, dentists, lawyers, accountants, journalists, teachers, engineers and computer programmers because all of these services and skills are needed as much in the regions as they are in the metropolitan centres.

One of the biggest barriers that we found to a student—or your child—securing a university degree from where the degree is being delivered is cost. I am not talking about the HECS debt. The greatest barrier for regional and remote students is the cost of relocating for study. This is officially estimated at $15,000 to $20,000, but the consensus of all the representatives is that it is more like $25,000 or $30,000, particularly if you are studying at a metropolitan university—with rents between $250 and $400 per week, just in share houses with more people than there are bedrooms. It is very expensive to exist, as anyone knows, in a metropolitan centre—let alone for a student.

These significant cost burdens are not faced by people who are blessed with a postcode of birth and a family located near the university they want to attend. Hallelujah! It is a lot easier for them, but if you are coming from Bourke, Brewarrina or Lismore to Sydney, or from Ballarat to Melbourne, you cannot catch a bus. You cannot use your Opal card to get to uni. You have to move lock, stock and barrel.

There are some support programs available which are very helpful. Youth allowance and relocation and start-up grants are helpful, but there are many families who earn above the threshold who are not wealthy families but do not qualify for anything, and they are left to foot the bill. For a local family with two or more students wanting to access higher education, this can add up to almost $50,000 in after-tax earnings, which for two salaried people, in a town like the one I live in, is absolutely out of reach. They get hammered with the cost, but they are excluded on the current criteria, and the independence criteria for their child to achieve independence and get youth allowance are tilted against that happening.

I would like to thank all the participants who took part in the forum and who shared their stories and their ideas. The contribution will help shape a final report which will be presented to the Minister for Education, Christopher Pyne, and the Minister for Social Services, Scott Morrison, later this year. I am sure there are going to be very many good recommendations out of the report, because we certainly know what the problem is and we will continue to fight for a better outcome for regional and remote students.