Assuming the Government, budget willing, can undo the Job Ready Graduates funding model ignores two problems. Andrew Norton explains the perennial one

The first, as Frank Larkins and Ian Marshman explained for CMM (Expert Opinion, ep two), is that winding JRG back will be very difficult indeed.

And then there is the perennial policy-into-philosophy problem of how much should governments and students pay for different degrees and why.

The learned Andrew Norton puts the questions in the context of 30 years of Commonwealth funding models, starting with HECS, in a new paper for the Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education. He examines how governments have tinkered with five fundamentals, course costs, private benefits, public benefits, resources per CSP, and support for politically preferred occupations.

And it seems JRG is not going to end arguments

“It is too early to say conclusively whether the Job-ready Graduates goal of steering enrolments will fail, but the early results are consistent with theory and history – money is not the right instrument for changing course interests and the policy’s student contribution incentives and disincentives are not large enough to alter the career economics of course choices, “ Mr Norton argues.