I'm sorry but I find the actual data and arguments in this article to be seriously lacking in detail, there is a table with a vaguely defined percentage of the population educated and a mix of very different countries (eastern european countries and mexico alongside wealthy scandinavian countries) and the cost of abolishing hecs-help is stated to be "immense" and similar to the gst but as far as i know the annual revenue from hecs repayments is less than 0.5% of total government revenue. There is minimal discussion of the effects of fees on participation rates for different groups and no discussion at all about the differences between tafe and university fees or the changes that have been made since it's introduction to greatly increase the rate of hecs-help leading to much higher levels of debt for students..

My adult educational journey began with my local TAFE. A diploma gave me entry to university and the rest I managed myself. I rec'd a university stipend for my masters and did my doctorate part-time while working (it was HECS free). For the rest of the time I needed Austudy and augmented this by working part-time.

I don't think having a HECS debt is a problem for the student (I've paid mine). It is something for the future.

Having support to cover living expenses while studying is an issue for the here and now and I know of many graduates from secondary school who put in a gap year in order to access government support. Austudy or something like it is essential.

I like the current links between some universities and some TAFEs where a student can start locally and either stop with a TAFE qualification or use that to finish a degree at university. It addresses issues of equity and access.

Access is important in the country. When my daughter wanted to do university it was not possible for us to send her to Melbourne and support her there. We did not have the means and so we looked at what was on offer locally. Fortunately both La Trobe and Melba Uni had campuses either in town or close to it. Our thinking was that post graduate study would be very important and so it was. After obtaining a business degree she qualified as a middle-years teacher.

BTW my daughter needed little support from us, she moved out, shared a house, worked part-time at a local pizza place and made it work - just like I had.

Big big issue I have with this piece lies in its idea that if government covers the costs of higher education, somehow that makes it free, presumably to students. But nothing can be further from the truth.

As my old philosophy professor used to say to freshers during his orientation lecture every year, if you are only here for a degree, come up to my office after the lecture, give me $30,000 and I will give you your degree and wish you well in life. The rest of you are here to work.

It makes no difference to the argument whether he took their $30,000 or nothing at all, the point being that for no student ever is higher education free. It cannot be free. Whoever pays the bills, covers the fees, provides the resources, has little or nothing to do with the student.

The student is there to study, period.

For the remainder, higher education is not a cost it's an investment, at the end of the day an investment in that student and through them the future of the country. Figures going around a few years ago, please update me at leisure, suggested that over the working life of the graduate there is a return of some 1,700% on that initial investment in them.

The reason for protest at extra higher education costs and fees is that they are unconscionably burdensome. The extra load on students is grossly detrimental, when they are already putting in the very hard yards, where respect, appreciation and generosity toward them at that time in their lives is far more likely to produce happy and productive citizens pleased to return the compliment, and to invest again in the next lot coming through.

Does that make sense to anyone yet? Shouldn't this argument be phrased better in terms of investment in the nation's future, and in that the future of the world, than in terms of cost?

I'm fierce about this. This issue is as fundamental as healthcare and adequate nutrition. We can see the gross inequities in the US, for example, where people have to pay for medical attention, for life-saving operations, and HELLO, to attend university.

An appalling state of affairs.

China by contrast is a different case in that the entire civilisation is predicated upon not military-industrial, ego-centric mass individualism but high scholarship and mutual obligation, leaving university and postgraduate students free to get on with their studies in a climate of enormous respect and appreciation, and worry about where the money came from later as the next generation comes through.

Germany by further contrast has always been a diverse, free-thinking, loudly questioning and debating nation, with Geneva and Edinburgh and the Low Countries historically at the forefront of European reformation and enlightenment. It comes as no surprise at all that generous investment in higher education is also central to their modern economic development and progress.

Chinese and Germans alike are very hard working peoples, constantly frustrated at having to carry the extra burden of those around them, who think they can get away with being lazy, indolent, and to this writer anyway tediously boring.

What Australia still urgently needs to do, and we are not to bad at it overall except it is not so central to our consciousness and being as it might, is shift right away from the intellectually lazy, philistine, beer-swilling worker's paradise model to a culture of scholarship, culture and learning of the highest order.

Once we place higher education conspicuously at centre stage, and say to everyone regardless that this is the standard to emulate, nothing less, the tangible return on the investment becomes more immediately clear to everyone.

Then we can stop bickering and arguing about it, and get on with turning this place around finally.

There is also the issue of quality. Despite its population and wealth, Australia's universities are much better than Germany's. And I don't know if the situation has changed, but at least ten years ago, the German undergraduate model was based almost solely on ginormous lectures, with most students having to sit outside the lecture theatre taking notes from outside speakers of the lecturer inside. Germany has nothing to teach us. Also, a large % (more than 50%?) Australia's university educated population was educated overseas. We have tended to import our university-educated workforce.