The 25% fee increase that the Howard goverment has allowed affects every current student at the end of 2008. So those who signed up before the policy was passed on the belief that they had 10 years to complete their degree under full deferred HECS will have to sign an agreement with the government to be able to continue their degree with government assistance next year. This agreement - of which their is no choice but to sign if you want any HECS assistance - then transfers students to the 25% increase rate at the end of 2008.

So if someone signed up for a combined law/arts degree last year, they would have 10 years to complete a 5 year degree. For part-time students, this is important. this would mean they would not have had to complete their degree until end of 2013. Under the new legislation, they are now going to be hit with the 25% increase from the start of 2009.

They did not sign up to this agreement. they signed up to full deferred HECS. There is no choice for a lot of these students and are they going to be forced to agree to the new conditions if they want to finish their degree. For other students further into their degrees, they will have already incurred a large HECS debt that they will still have to repay if forced to leave tertiary education as a result of not being able to afford the increase.

Surely this is bait and switch or third line forcing. I'm going to ask the ACCC to investigate the legality of the policy and try and find out why John Howard does not have to conform (once again) to the same standards as all other Australians.