The Access Implications of Income Contingent Charges for Higher Education: Lessons from Australia

This paper describes the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS), Australia's income contingent charge mechanism, and analyses its impact on the social composition of university participation. We analyse university participation data from three cohorts of young Australians. The first cohort completed their schooling prior to the introduction of HECS, the second following its introduction and the third after the scheme was amended substantially. We find that the social composition of participants was different in 1999 from that of 1988. However, the distribution was more equal than it was in the late 1980s. That outcome reflected the growth in participation in the middle of the wealth distribution, which was stronger than growth at either the top or the bottom of the distribution. Other aspects of university participation also changed: participation grew more strongly among females than males. We find no evidence that participation fell among 'marginal decision makers' - those who, while at school, said they did not intend to study at university. We conclude that HECS did not act to discourage university participation in general or among individuals from the lowest wealth groups.

Income-Contingent Financing of Student Charges for Higher Education: Assessing the Australian Innovation

In Australia in 1989, for the first time in the world, a broadly-based income contingent loan policy for the payment of higher education charges was adopted, when the government introduced the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS). This can be seen to be a watershed in terms of the relationship between economic theory and education policy. Fourteen years later it is timely to revisit the arguments for its introduction and review Australia's experience with income contingent charging for higher education. That is the purpose of this article. It is argued that compared to all possible alternatives, income contingent loan arrangements are preferable for both economic and social reasons, so long as the administrative context allows efficient collection of the debt. These points are explained in detail. The political background to HECS is examined, and the paper considers the implications of the scheme for both revenue and the access of the poor to higher education. It is demonstrated that neither the introduction of the scheme in 1989 nor the radical modifications undertaken in 1997 have had any deleterious consequences for the participation of less advantaged students.

An Analysis of FEE-HELP in the Vocational Education and Training Sector

The public vocational education and training (VET) system is now one of the few areas in Australia’s tertiary education system where students are required to pay up-front fees without access to loan assistance. These arrangements may lead to sub-optimal educational outcomes to the extent that prospective students reject a VET education on the basis of short-term financial constraints. In this paper we analyse some of the important issues related to the adoption of FEE-HELP (a 2005 Federal Government financial instrument based on the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS)). It is argued that income contingent loans of this kind are associated with the advantages of both default-protection and consumption smoothing. Using data from the first three waves of the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey, we examine various empirical issues associated with the adoption of FEE-HELP in VET, including the extent of private salary returns to VET qualifications. As well, we explore issues related to the public subsidies inherent in the adoption of FEE-HELP in VET, and illustrate the time periods involved in loan repayments for various assumptions concerning the size of the charge and the future income of VET graduates. Administrative issues are considered, as are the implications for the Commonwealth Government with respect to potential subsidies associated with the design parameters.educational finance, educational economics, vocational education

Change of the "Guard": Charlie Rouse, Steve Lacy, and the Music of Thelonious Monk

The word “Monkian” is frequently used in jazz discourse to describe the music of pianist Thelonious Monk. This study consolidates literature on Monk’s music to define the Monkian aesthetic as an integration of the following musical elements: unorthodox jazz harmony, rhythmic displacement, principles of economy, an emphasis on thematic repetition, and technical experimentation. These elements appear in his compositions, which jazz musicians find difficult to perform. The Monkian aesthetic may be apparent in music by other jazz performers who integrate these elements during improvisation. An analysis of selected improvisations by Charlie Rouse and Steve Lacy, two saxophonists who performed Monk’s music extensively, demonstrates this aesthetic. Analyses are conducted on two solos by Rouse in the post-bop style—“Evidence” (1960) and “Rhythm-A-Ning” (1964)—and three recordings by Lacy in the free jazz style: two versions of “Evidence” (1961 and 1985) and “Pannonica” (1963). The Monkian aesthetic is prominent in their music, and is demonstrated through narrative description with the aid of formulaic, schematic, and reduction analysis techniques. Group interaction is shown to play a significant role in their interpretations. I argue that Monk, Rouse, and Lacy were avant-garde jazz musicians. They represent a change in the notion of “avant-garde” in jazz according to the musical analyses and a critical evaluation of their social environment. Monk’s performances, recordings, and public image were avant-garde for the 1940s and 1950s. Rouse followed Monk’s musical conception closely, and by extension, is considered an avant-gardist in jazz. Lacy’s music and his community of musicians helped define the 1960s avant-garde movement in jazz. Both saxophonists contributed to Monk’s legacy in these conceptions of avant-gardism

The Impact of High School Principal\u27s Technology Leadership on the Sustainability of Corporate Sponsored Information Communication Technology Curriculum

The proliferation of information communication technology (ICT) has placed educational institutions in the forefront in educating and training students as skilled consumers, engineers, and technicians of this widely used technology. Corporations that develop and use ICT are continually building a skilled workforce; however, because of the growth and ultimately the need for a strong, skilled workforce they are reaching out to educational institutions to help bridge the gap in building this need. Corporations such as Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe, VMware, and others developed curricular programs that offer both K - 12 and higher education a means to educate and train students to become educated users, engineers, and technicians with the use of their products. The purpose of this mixed method study is to examine the high school administrator`s impact on the sustainability of corporate-sponsored ICT curriculum programs specifically within the State of Montana. The quantitative research examined the impact of high school principals` scores on the Principals` Technology Leadership Assessment (PTLA) scores and the number of months high schools participated in corporate-sponsored ICT curriculum (sustainability score); specifically the Cisco Networking Academy program. This study used the Spearman`s Rank-Order Correlation Coefficient in order to evaluate the PTLA and sustainability scores both for the State of Montana as a whole and by separate high school class sizes. The qualitative research was based upon a case study of the Cisco Networking Academy (CNA) program for Montana high school administrators on their impact on the sustainability of the CNA program within their individual high schools. This was combined with a post hoc item analysis of the PTLA scores primarily for the purpose to understand the eighteen (18) participants better. The results of both the qualitative and quantitative studies helped to develop factors that described the sustainability of corporate-sponsored ICT curricula in Montana high schools