Excessive cost of education

I spent this morning doing a little bit of a search on doing a Masters degree. I've done pretty well at Uni so far, and would like to go further. I find it very difficult to believe that the charge to students (at minimum, $13600 for coursework) for one year of study is justified. I've been told to just defer the bulk of the cost through HECS, but ultimately I'll end up paying it all out very quickly through the tax system. HECS repayments are based on your income, and doesn't take into account the fact you have four children and a massive mortgage to deal with.

You have to wonder what incentive there is to do any post-graduate education. At the end of the day, you'll be lucky to get a job which adds the amount it cost you to get the qualification to the salary you were already getting.

The students coming through the education system are focused on simply passing the minimum requirement. When there's no incentive to go any further - in fact, the cost for the education becomes inflated past all reason (goodness me, $13600???) - who can really blame them? By supporting a system that charges such ridiculous fees our Government is holding back the people it should be encouraging to study further.

Do you want to be looked after by a doctor, lawyer - teacher - who only just scraped through?