The government is facing growing calls to change how HELP, better known as HECS, is indexed, after current and former students were slugged with a 7.1 per cent increase last year.
Under the current system, compulsory repayments for Higher Education Loans Program , better known as HECS, are taken from every pay cheque, but the overall debt doesn't change until after a tax return has been lodged. "We shouldn't have a government that's taking money at 4.1 per cent and charging people 7.1 per cent. I'd say it should be the lower of the two.""At the moment, there is no accounting for repayments of student debt in real time," Shadow Education Minister Sarah Henderson said.
"HELP loans are indexed so that taxpayers get their money back. We lend $1 and the taxpayer gets the real value of that dollar back," Minister Clare said in a statement to Hack.of the repayment system as part of its broad-ranging review of the university system, which is expected to be released to the public later this month.
"Under this government, we have seen shocking increases in student debt of 11 per cent over two years, which is placing an unacceptable cost of adding burden on students.