MIDDLE CLASS ENTITLEMENT

True confessions of a middle-class welfare recipient: A high-quality university degree is a bankable commodity. I should know (Tim Watts, June 25 2003, The Age)

Hello. My name is Tim and I'm a middle-class welfare recipient.

It's not an easy thing to own up to, but I can now admit it: Australian taxpayers subsidised more than 70 per cent of the cost of my tertiary education.

Even though I'm now out earning more than $60,000 a year, I will never pay back a cent of the cost of my tertiary education. My HECS fees were paid upfront and so I got a substantial additional discount from the Government.

My Melbourne University commerce/arts degree has proven very valuable in the employment market. I find it opens doors that are closed to my friends who went to other universities.

It has given me critical thinking skills and problem-solving abilities that have led to a succession of interesting, fulfilling jobs and to steady rises in my income. I own a house and have the capacity to save thousands of dollars a year, unlike many of my Generation X peers.

It hurts to admit it, but I have achieved this on a form of middle-class welfare: the old HECS tertiary education funding system. I call it welfare because I feel taxpayers basically paid me to get an elite education that is not universally available.

Even worse, the universal availability of other forms of education aid drive an inflation in that sector that would not otherwise exist. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 26, 2003 7:58 PM