The costs of unpaid higher education contribution scheme debts of graduates working abroad

Bruce Chapman*, Tim Higgins

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    4 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    The Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) is an income-contingent loan designed to collect tuition from Australian university students. The debt is collected on the basis of recorded incomes and, as a consequence, debtors living overseas will not repay. Using various data sources and assumptions, multiple scenarios are considered in order to estimate the extent of uncollected overseas debt. A conservative estimate of the amount of foregone HECS revenue for the 1989-2011 graduate cohorts working overseas is over $400 million, but it is shown that, under other plausible assumptions, the foregone revenue may be close to double this amount.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)286-299
    Number of pages14
    JournalAustralian Economic Review
    Volume46
    Issue number3
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Sept 2013

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'The costs of unpaid higher education contribution scheme debts of graduates working abroad'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this