Comments on: Would a HECS remission incentive be effective?

By: Francis Xavier Holden

Francis Xavier Holden — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 04:25:58 +0000

I don’t get too excited about early childhood education but the general idea of “rebates” / remissions or savings for going to remote and rural areas or shortage areas is generally a better one than bonding. Bonding needs a committement by the student/professional upfront whereas the remission method lets students leave it until the last minute (at least 3 years say for nurses) before committing, so there would be less resentful seeking of exemptions/ gaming that goes on in bonding.

By: Andrew Norton

Andrew Norton — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 02:00:05 +0000

Rajat - I also have applications data going back to 1993, which shows the same pattern of stability over time, despite differential HECS in 1997 and higher student contribution amounts in 2005. Between 1996 and 1997, only one subject area changed its market share by more than 1 percentage point, and that was Arts, which had acquired a relative price advantage. Between 2004 and 2005, no subject area had a change exceeding 1 percentage point of market share.

Since the current subject classifications were introduced in 2001, only IT has had a large loss of applications market share, with a smaller but still more than 1 percentage point loss in management. I would theorise that these courses are attractive to students with a purely instrumental view of higher ed. However, overall I think the interests theory has more explanatory power than the alternatives.

By: Rajat Sood

Rajat Sood — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 00:04:24 +0000

Andrew, I looked at the Exec Summ for the paper on students’ course prefences you referenced and had a quick look at the conclusions of the full paper. It was a pretty limited study (pre-differential HECS) and didn’t explicitly test the proposition that fees or financial returns don’t matter. If anything, it made some observations on whether course status was an important driver - for example, whether people who put down law as a preference also put down medicine. So perhaps the statement in your post was a bit strong and your response to DD was both intuitive and reasonable on the evidence available.

By: Andrew Norton

Andrew Norton — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 23:09:16 +0000

DD - I don’t think that’s the right conclusion. Price signals could affect course choice between the interests students hold (they can hold more than one set of interests, hence double degrees, and there are varying course possibilities within interest ranges, eg someone interested in science could be interested in a straight science course, a medical course, or a veterninary science course). But you are not going to convince someone interested in the performing arts to do accounting just because it is cheap.

And price signals affect choices between universities (and impliedly, the level of investment someone wants to make; you could sensibly invest far more if you think there is going to be a strong financial return).

By: derrida derider

derrida derider — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 22:45:50 +0000

students

By: entropy

entropy — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 12:33:39 +0000

I wonder if the swat womble has thought of the secondary benefits of getting more governesses out into the back blocks for the squatter’s sons to romance?