In October 2020, the Australian Parliament legislated what appear to be significant changes in HECS–HELP prices, the tuition charges levied on domestic undergraduate students. Through this policy change, the Government aims to influence student choices in order to help deliver the skill changes presumed to be required for the economy's post-COVID make-up. This paper examines, in conceptual and empirical terms, a key aspect of the motivation for the reform, the true meaning of prices in the HECS–HELP world of an income-contingent loan (ICL). We explain the conceptual basis of ICL charges and, with 2016 Census data, illustrate the meaning of the price changes between disciplines, by gender, and for a suite of expected future graduate lifetime income distributions. Our analysis points strongly to the conclusion that the true price changes are far less than they appear to be, highlighting the potential of there being quite muted consequences for student discipline choices.

中文翻译：

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了解最近的 HECS–HELP 价格误解

2020 年 10 月，澳大利亚议会通过了对 HECS-HELP 价格（对国内本科生征收的学费）似乎发生重大变化的立法。通过这一政策变化，政府旨在影响学生的选择，以帮助实现经济后 COVID 构成所需的技能变化。本文从概念和实证的角度考察了改革动机的一个关键方面，即收入或有贷款 (ICL) 的 HECS-HELP 世界中价格的真正含义。我们解释了 ICL 收费的概念基础，并结合 2016 年人口普查数据，说明了学科之间、性别以及一系列预期的未来毕业生终生收入分布的价格变化的含义。