On the day the government announced an extended waiver on (most, not all) TEQSA fees and charges the agency released a discussion paper on the now long-coming cost recovery

Moving the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency from partial to full cost recovery was announced in the 2018 budget but was put on hold last April to assist providers whose revenues were being punished by the pandemic.

The new nominated start date announced then was July 21. But on Friday the government put this back to New Year’s Day.

HE providers now have a chance to comment about proposals to slug them,

* 100 per cent of the cost of assessing applications and up to 70 per cent for course accreditation/reaccreditation

* providers being investigated by the agency will pay all the costs

* for a levy to meet the agency’s costs for industry-wide activities (for example “development and delivery of advice to providers and the profiling and management of risk in the sector”). This will be phased in, reaching full cost recovery by 2024.

There’s even a rate card for what services will cost.  An internal review of a TEQSA decision will set a provider back $992, the proposed charge for a complex registration renewal is $163 000.

Submissions are due on June 3