Youth Allowance Eligibility (2 Viewers)

Opinions on Youth Allowance eligibility?


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moll.

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I somewhat agree with you Moll, but your poll choices are poorly constructed. The obvious choice that you have denied is "retain student welfare, but in an altered form" (or similar).

I see (means-tested) student welfare as a valuable way to increase the access of socioeconomically disadvantaged groups to education. There are always different ways to offer money though, e.g. rent assistance, scholarships with restrictions on use (e.g. rent, textbooks, and travel versus alcohol), and of course there are concession fares.
Yeah, mods can change the poll and add more options if they want. I just went with the basic "more, less or same" format. I didn't put an excruciating amount of thought into a poll which I figured few people would vote on anyway. It would appear I was wrong on both accounts.
Yeah, I agree with you here KFunk. I would like to see a greater variety of government assistance to students, tailored to their general scenarios, rather than just more welfare. For example, rental assistance for those going to uni away from home, textbook allowance for low income/wealth families, and the full Youth Allowance for people with both.
 

jennyfromdabloc

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What about them? arn't the people who came out as lawyers, doctors, engineers and pharmacists paying for their roads, public transport, military etc etc? a bigger amount of their wage is going towards things like public education, so that argument doesn't wash.
I don't follow. Income tax is based on your total income, not your job title. Lots of people with no tertiary education also have high incomes.

That 'useless degree' point is an entirely different story, but that would involve a shift in the way that society looks at tertiary education.
Oh right, it would involve a shift. Let's just ignore the criticism then.

Higher education pays back tenfold in economic terms, thats just the way it is.
Haha, right, ten fold! What evidence do you have of this enormous dividend apart from it just being "the way it is?"

Now, I'm not saying that some Knox boy should receive YA because he's 'reading law', but the whole 'if you're mum and dad make <50K combined then you get YA and if they make anything over that you're fucked' system really isn't working.
How is it fucked up? Most people seem to get by with part time jobs. If worst comes to worse and their parents won't support them and they can't get government assistance, students can complete their degree part time, or work for a few years and save some money.

I see absolutely no evidence of talented people missing out on uni because they can't get enough welfare. If anything it is the total opposite, with way to many useless students, in useless degrees encouraged to waste everyone's time and money because of welfare.
 

mcflystargirl

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This is the model I think should be implemented

-if a student moves out of home for uni they should get youth allowance automatically.

-For students living at home and attending uni , they should receive youth allowance if there parents do not earn enough to support them, the current cut-off is ridiculous, it needs to be increased

- Uni for people like teachers and nurses, or those who will be pursuing careers that we have shortages for should be free, but failed units should be paid for,(either up front or HECs) For everyone else the HECs system should remain as is (interest free and paid for like it is now)

- Students wishing to study extra subjects as a part of there degree should be able to pay for these unit's through HECS
 

aussie-boy

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wrong

because it is possible to have the workforce saturated with university gradutes etc

k fed or someone brought it up before
How does that make my arguments wrong?

If everyone's a uni grad, then your whole workforce is more productive, leading to economic growth. You can never have too much education.

Perhaps it would be different if the increase in graduates had come about through the dumbing down of uni courses - obviously if your workforce is saturated by graduates who have not actually learnt anything, you have a problem.

As long as uni remains difficult and actually educates grads as it claims to do, my argument still stands strong.
 

Oliver04

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I don't follow. Income tax is based on your total income, not your job title. Lots of people with no tertiary education also have high incomes.
You think that on average a used car salesmen makes more than a mining engineer?

Its possible that the sheer volume of people in blue collar jobs could contribute a greater amount to GDP than the total in white collar jobs but I'm really not enough of an economist to answer that question.


Oh right, it would involve a shift. Let's just ignore the criticism then.
Do you want to abolish arts degrees? they'd already be an abuse of YA in your view. Maybe you should start up a new thread.


Haha, right, ten fold! What evidence do you have of this enormous dividend.
America = worlds highest amount of engineers (properly accredited as opposed to china). Education has always been a guaranteed investment. Can you really not see that having an educated workforce is better than a non educated one?

How is it fucked up? Most people seem to get by with part time jobs. If worst comes to worse and their parents won't support them and they can't get government assistance, students can complete their degree part time, or work for a few years and save some money.

I see absolutely no evidence of talented people missing out on uni because they can't get enough welfare. If anything it is the total opposite, with way to many useless students, in useless degrees encouraged to waste everyone's time and money because of welfare.
I don't know where the fuck you're from but you couldn't be more wrong on the first point. My mate lives on $30 a week, another ended up in hospital due to malnutrition. There IS no work available, we just came out of a recession.

I agree with you on this next point but that problem already exists for the current YA system.
 

moll.

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The views expressed are my own and do not represent in any way the opinions/plans of my employer and have not been informed by any data/information which is outside of the public domain.

I have voted no because while I think YA should exist in some form the form which I envisage is so different to it's current form as to be a completely new payment model. But before we jump to my conclusion some background:

  • As you would know I am not a massive fan of taxation/welfare (the transfer system) in general. Insofar as it does exist I think that it should be flat not progressive and definitely not regressive.
  • Youth Allowance and HECS are extremely regressive forms of welfare because they are recieved by people who will later go on to be the middle and upper classes however are paid for by everyone. The checkout operator at coles is subsidising your university education and lifestyle.
  • YA/HECS do help disadvantaged people attend university and bootstrap however they also encourage over-consumption of education. I like the former and don't like the latter.

So for me the challenge is how to have a system which helps the disadvantaged to better themselves but is not regressive and does not encourage over-consumption. My ideas are still in a nascent stage but a rough overview is:

  • YA abolished in it's current form
  • HECS abolished in it's current form
  • A new system called Higher-Education-Loan-Allowance (HELA-cool :p) is established
  • Universities are free to charge whatever fees they want
  • HELA to provide a loan to students. The loan could cover fees (or a proportion thereof) and also pay a living allowance (a max living allowance figure would be set and students could elect to recieve any amount up to the max)
  • The interest rate would be available in a similar way to a mortgage (fixed, variable, etc)
  • Neither the interest or the principal would be payable until graduation. And the repayment term would be 10 years
  • Parents, employers, etc could contract to pay for part of the fees (under whatever arrangement/conditions they want) which would reduce the amount the student would be loaning
  • Existing HECS supported students would be grandfathered

The funding itself would work as follows:
  • The HELA loans would initially be made by a government run (but corporatised) HELA-Fund,
  • Other financial institutions would be free to compete
  • The HELA fund would initially be primarily funded by the Government however would seek private investment primarily from institutional investors like pension/super funds.
  • The HELA fund could also raise capital by selling bonds
  • Over-time the HELA fund would transistion to privatisation
Normally I like your ideas Lou (calling you Lou cos I can't be fucked with your actual username and don't know your real one). But this one is horrible.
America has a system very similar to the one you've proposed. Basically, their system ensures that only the upper classes can actually afford to go to uni, even with the loan, and it really only serves to perpetuate the already growing divisions in welath within their country. Many times there is no garuantee of employment after uni, and yet the banks and lending institutions in America still hound the former students for repayments as soon as they graduate. Because some of the students are unable to repay the loans, the banks charge higher risk premiums on all their loans, which in turn makes them all harder to repay (after all, there is no mortgage contract, so default by the graduate results in the bank losing the entire sum, not like with home loans where the house can be repossessed). Also, the banks don't wait until the graduate earns a reasonable sum before asking for repayment, like our government does, but instead start asking for repayment straight away.
The only exception to this are the few students who are lucky enough to get scholarships, and we all know how few and far between they are.

Also, Lou, you really haven't taken into account a communal or social gains from the current system. Higher levels of education across the board helps lift job prospects and hence standards of living for the graduates, which in turn has carry-on effects to the wider community. It also means there are a greater amount of competitive Australian human capital upon the world markets, which helps non-physical exports. Most glaringly of all though, is that the current system means that the Australian government makes an investment in Australia's youth which costs virtually nothing in the long-term (interest on HECS is pegged to inflation, so the repayed amount is theoretically worth exactly the same as the principal loan) and has very large benefits in the former of greater tax revenue from higher incomes.
I honestly see no downside at all in the current system, except perhaps for the income statement of the universities themselves, which I believe isn't necessary to inflate.
 

jennyfromdabloc

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You think that on average a used car salesmen makes more than a mining engineer?

Its possible that the sheer volume of people in blue collar jobs could contribute a greater amount to GDP than the total in white collar jobs but I'm really not enough of an economist to answer that question.
I realise than on average graduates earn more than non-grads. But there are still a lot of people without degrees on high incomes who are being ripped off by the current system.

Do you want to abolish arts degrees? they'd already be an abuse of YA in your view. Maybe you should start up a new thread.
I do not want to abolish arts degrees. I want to abolish Youth Allowance.

I have absolutely nothing against arts degrees, as long as people pay for them themselves.


America = worlds highest amount of engineers (properly accredited as opposed to china). Education has always been a guaranteed investment. Can you really not see that having an educated workforce is better than a non educated one?
Oh well that proves it. There are no other differences between China and the USA that could explain the difference in living standards.

If we want prosperity we just have to educate more engineers. It's so simple!

I don't know where the fuck you're from but you couldn't be more wrong on the first point. My mate lives on $30 a week, another ended up in hospital due to malnutrition. There IS no work available, we just came out of a recession.
Sounds like your mate is an idiot. This one example proves nothing. Even with welfare, there will always be idiots who blow all their money and don't take care of themselves. How about a bit of personal responsibility.
 
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banco55

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I was listening to Triple J news earlier this morning and they were covering the government's proposed changes. The head of the Student Union then chipped in and it would appear that he and his cronies want youth allowance to be available to everyone who is studying, not just those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
My first reaction was that he was a greedy, idiotic wanker who would quite happily bankrupt the state so that students across Australia can spend more on pot, alcohol and mi goreng. My second, third and fourth reactions were similar.
Opinions?
Great example of how the student union leaders manage to marginalise themselves from the political debate.
 

SnowFox

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Sounds like your mate is an idiot. This one example proves nothing. Even with welfare, there will always be idiots who blow all their money and don't take care of themselves. How about a bit of personal responsibility.
Ill give you $350 a fortnight and let's see if you survive paying bills.
 

loquasagacious

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Ill give you $350 a fortnight and let's see if you survive paying bills.
I managed fine.

A year of no YA, just some money I saved working over the break and part-time work. Then I got YA did a little work on top and had plenty.
 

jennyfromdabloc

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Ill give you $350 a fortnight and let's see if you survive paying bills.
If you budget sensibly and don't go out drinking/partying all the time it's really not an issue.

People expect so much in this country. Ironically, Australians on welfare are richer than most people in the developing world, and it is the welfare system which would be abused that prevents us from allowing more immigrants to come here to work for a better life. It is in fact the pro welfare camp that lacks compassion and favors discrimination in favor of the wealthly (those born in developed countries).
 

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If you budget sensibly and don't go out drinking/partying all the time it's really not an issue.

People expect so much in this country. Ironically, Australians on welfare are richer than most people in the developing world, and it is the welfare system which would be abused that prevents us from allowing more immigrants to come here to work for a better life. It is in fact the pro welfare camp that lacks compassion and favors discrimination in favor of the wealthly (those born in developed countries).

Are you shitting me?

~$250 a week rent + bills means you are not going anywhere fast apart to either a hospital for malnutrition/ being bashed for being in a shit neighbourhood, or going back to living with the parents.
 

jennyfromdabloc

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Are you shitting me?

~$250 a week rent + bills means you are not going anywhere fast apart to either a hospital for malnutrition/ being bashed for being in a shit neighbourhood, or going back to living with the parents.
Well you won't be able to live in the best neighborhoods and you may have to share a room. But hey, you can't always get what you want.

If students are entitled to welfare so they don't have to live in "shit neighbourhoods" should all Australians who live in these neigbourhoods also receive government handouts? It seems you are just empathizing with students because you are going through that phase in your life right now and you want to be able to live outside of your parents home and have a comfortable lifestyle while you are studying. Fair enough, but don't force others to pay for your lifestyle.

As for food, you'd be amazed how cheaply you can eat well with fresh, healthy foods if you shop frugally and put a bit of effort into cooking yourself.
 
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Oliver04

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Well you won't be able to live in the best neighborhoods and you may have to share a room. But hey, you can't always get what you want.

If students are entitled to welfare so they don't have to live in "shit neighbourhoods" should all Australians who live in these neigbourhoods also receive government handouts? It seems you are just empathizing with students because you are going through that phase in your life right now and you want to be able to live outside of your parents home and have a comfortable lifestyle while you are studying. Fair enough, but don't force others to pay for your lifestyle.

As for food, you'd be amazed how cheaply you can eat well with fresh, healthy foods if you shop frugally and put a bit of effort into cooking yourself.
You clearly havent done this have you?
 

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Are you shitting me?

~$250 a week rent + bills means you are not going anywhere fast apart to either a hospital for malnutrition/ being bashed for being in a shit neighbourhood, or going back to living with the parents.
ahahahahhaha $250 a week rent??? It is not the role of the taxpayer to keep you in the manner to which you are accustomed....

I earn more than the median household income and I pay ~$175p/w

And as a student the first sharehouse was $110p/w.... + around $90p/w in utilities and food.
 

loquasagacious

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Well you won't be able to live in the best neighborhoods and you may have to share a room. But hey, you can't always get what you want.

If students are entitled to welfare so they don't have to live in "shit neighbourhoods" should all Australians who live in these neigbourhoods also receive government handouts? It seems you are just empathizing with students because you are going through that phase in your life right now and you want to be able to live outside of your parents home and have a comfortable lifestyle while you are studying. Fair enough, but don't force others to pay for your lifestyle.

As for food, you'd be amazed how cheaply you can eat well with fresh, healthy foods if you shop frugally and put a bit of effort into cooking yourself.
Exactly. I've done it.
 

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