The basic idea is that university-educated people make more money than people who don't have a university educationpic.twitter.com/655xEy61Ym
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They get better jobs, have higher salaries, etc etc etc There is some confounding here - university students are richer from the start anyway -BUT even when controlling for that, you find that they earn more money
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"But what does this have to do with the government?" Well you see, dear reader, people who earn more money also pay more taxpic.twitter.com/eD7BC6PYca
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How much more tax? Well, the median yearly salary for a university graduate is ~$64,000 For a high school/TAFE graduate, it's ~$52,000
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Over a 50-year timespan - roughly a career - you'd expect that university graduate to pay ~roughly~ $607,000 in tax The non-uni grad? On average, they pay $422,000
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The average university graduate borrows less than $20,000 from the government. So, from a $20,000 investment, the government gets almost $200,000 in returns
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These figures are backed up again and again. University graduates add billions to government revenue https://theconversation.com/higher-education-pays-for-itself-many-times-over-61511 …pic.twitter.com/BE0tT6yrjE
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OECD modelling shows similar results (although, sadly, a gender bias in earnings) http://www.oecd.org/education/skills-beyond-school/education-at-a-glance-19991487.htm …pic.twitter.com/jwuQxYhUIX
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The association is, as I mentioned, complex, but even conservative estimates put the return on investment to the government at 1.5-2x the expense of providing the university degree
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Having had a look at those figures, you might be thinking "Why would ANY government do the slightest thing to discourage people from attending uni?" It's a good question
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Lowering the HECS repayment threshold will, almost certainly, reduce the number of people who attend university In other words, it will almost certainly lose the government money
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It is, above all, an ideological choice before an economic one. End thread
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