Labor MPs are increasing pressure on the government to speed up reform of the controversial Morrison-era job-ready graduates (JRG) scheme that has “failed” students.
The Albanese government has flagged its intention to reform the scheme, but MPs have told Guardian Australia it should be a priority early in Labor’s second term.
Louise Miller-Frost, a South Australian Labor MP, said the JRG scheme, which has been widely condemned for hiking the cost of humanities and social science degrees, has angered voters.
“It is something that gets raised quite often, particularly when I’m talking to students about the 20% off Hecs which is very popular and people love it, but this is the next step,” she said.
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“It is a priority to make sure that we have the best possible access for university … I do see it as an intergenerational equity [issue].”
The matter has also been raised with Victorian MP Carina Garland, who studied humanities and has worked as an academic. She said the reforms needed to be done as soon as possible.
“I would hate to see the scheme becoming too entrenched,” Garland said.
“It’s really clear from my community that they want the government to act on the current job-ready graduates scheme, and it should happen sooner rather than later.
“The [universities] accord was pretty clear in its assessment and the minister has said we will move progressively to implement the recommendations. I’ve advocated for change [directly] to the minister’s office and will continue to do so.”
The scheme, introduced in 2021, changed the fee structure for university courses to increase costs for subjects including arts and law, and lowered course fees for degrees in Stem areas. The scheme also introduced a rule to remove Hecs debt eligibility for students who failed more than 50% of their units.
Labor commissioned the universities accord to outline a reform path across the entire sector, which made several key findings on the JRG scheme.
In July 2023, the accord released its interim report, which found the fee structure needed to be “redesigned before it causes long-term damage to Australian higher education by increasing the cost of gaining a qualification”, and recommended the 50% pass rule should be scrapped.
Labor immediately abolished the 50% pass rule, and later established the Australian Tertiary Education Commission (Atec) to make recommendations on changing the fee structure under the scheme.
The education minister, Jason Clare, has provided no timeline on when Atec, which has been in place since 1 July, will make its recommendations.
Clare said the accord had “made a number of recommendations and called out the previous government’s job-ready graduates program as a failure”.
“We’ve bitten off a big chunk of its recommendations already – 31 of 47 in full or in part. This includes changes to make the repayment system for Hecs fairer, which we passed through parliament last week,” he said.
“There’s more work to do and we’ll take it one step at a time.”
Labor MP Sally Sitou railed against the “failed” rules in parliament last week.
Sitou told Guardian Australia the previous Morrison government “actively undermined and underfunded the university sector” and said reform was “complex” and would take time.
“[The Coalition government] introduced the job-ready graduate scheme which the universities accord said [has] failed, and it made recommendations about how to address this,” she said, adding that Atec would “help to steer reform across the sector, including advice on the setting of course fees”.
Sitou said Labor had made significant progress on reform, and wants a rethink of the rules.
The parliament’s youngest-ever senator, Labor’s 21-year-old Charlotte Walker, said “stigma” around arts degrees, exacerbated by the JRG program, must end.
“There’s a stigma around, ‘Oh, why would you want to do that? You’re not actually going to be able to get a job’. I do genuinely think that sort of stigma turns students away from studying things,” Walker said.
“I really hope we can start moving past that.”
