Australians think students are being asked to pay far too much for their degrees. Just under half (47 per cent) of Australians surveyed by YouGov in June 2025 believe a worker on an average income should be able to pay off the debt for a standard three-year degree within five years. When it comes to the cost of a degree, 58 per cent believe a student should pay $5,000 or less per year - less than a third of what arts students now pay.

Just under one in five, or 18 per cent, believe a standard degree should be free - as it was 50 years ago, when the Whitlam Labor government introduced free university education in 1974. This ended in 1989, when in a world first, the Hawke Labor government introduced the income-contingent Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) - which is still with us t

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