research<\/a> published this year by the Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success, which found that one in three university students surveyed were experiencing financial insecurity.<\/p>\n\u201cStudents are doing it tough and there are practical things the government can do right now to ease some of that pressure,\u201d said Luke Sheehy, chief executive officer of Universities Australia.<\/p>\n
The organisation is calling for every domestic university student to have access to a concession card while studying.<\/p>\n
Concession cards can reduce the cost of essentials such as medicines, public transport and utility bills. While some domestic students are eligible for a Health Care Card through income support or other criteria, university enrolment itself does not guarantee access.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiving every domestic university student access to a concession card would help with the everyday costs that keep going up,\u201d said Sheehy.<\/p>\n
Universities Australia is also calling for international students to receive the same access to student public transport concessions as domestic students, regardless of which state or territory they study in.<\/p>\n
Access to public transport discounts currently varies across Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd international students shouldn\u2019t have to pay more than the student sitting next to them to catch the same bus or train to university,\u201d said Sheehy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese changes won\u2019t solve every cost-of-living pressure students face, but they would make a real difference\u2026 Opening the door to university is only half the job. Students need to be able to afford to stay once they get there,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can have two students sitting next to each other in the same lecture, paying the same rent, buying the same groceries and catching the same bus to campus\u2026 One gets the concession. The other doesn\u2019t. That makes no sense when students are already counting every dollar.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re a domestic university student, you should get the concession card\u2026 The same principle should apply to public transport for international students. They study in the same classrooms, live in the same communities and face the same rising costs.\u201d<\/p>\n
The calls come as the government faces pressure to improve access to higher education while also addressing the financial barriers that can prevent students from completing their studies.<\/p>\n
Sheehy said making university more affordable was essential to Australia\u2019s longer-term goal of increasing participation in higher education and developing the skilled workforce the country will need.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor our nation to thrive in the future, we need more university graduates, and we know where much of that growth has to come from,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
We need more students from low-income families, regional and remote communities, First Nations Australians and families where nobody has been to university before<\/p>\n
Luke Sheehy, Universities Australia<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need more students from low-income families, regional and remote communities, First Nations Australians and families where nobody has been to university before.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut asking more of those Australians to go to university means making sure they can afford to stay there. This isn\u2019t separate from the equity challenge: it\u2019s a big part of the equity challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The peak body for Australia\u2019s universities says students are facing steep increases in the cost of everyday essentials,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":884713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-884712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=884712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/884713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=884712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=884712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=884712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}