WeRise · Policy platform
Education
Key findings
- $16.5 billionAdditional Commonwealth funding committed to public schools over 2025–26 to 2034–35 under the Better and Fairer Schools Agreements, tied to reform commitments. Source: Australian Government Department of Education · Better and Fairer Schools Agreements 2025–2034 Fact Sheet · 2025 []
- 1 in 10In 2026, 10.2% of Australian students were assessed as needing additional support in reading and 9.6% in numeracy. Source: Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority · 2026 NAPLAN National Results · 2026 []
- 17% vs 25%Students from low-SES areas were 17.0% of domestic higher-education commencements in 2024, despite low-SES areas containing about 25% of the relevant population. Source: Australian Government Department of Education · Key Findings from the 2024 Higher Education Student Statistics · 2026 []
- $81.0 billionAustralians held $81.0 billion in outstanding HELP debt across 2.93 million debtors in 2023–24, before the subsequent 20% debt-reduction measure. Source: Parliamentary Library · Universities Accord (Cutting Student Debt by 20 Per Cent) Bill 2025 Digest · 2025 []
Part 01
The Case for Change
Why Education matters
Education is a right, not a family advantage
Australia cannot build an equal society or a skilled economy while learning opportunities are distributed by wealth, postcode and debt.
Australia’s education challenge is not simply to enrol more students. It is to ensure that a child’s prospects are not predictable from their family income, place of residence, disability, cultural background or ability to carry debt. Public education is the institution that can make that promise real – but only if it is funded, staffed and designed around need.
The case begins in schools. Governments spent $91.0 billion recurrently on school education in 2023–24, or $22,185 per full-time-equivalent student.1 Yet significant learning gaps persist. In the 2026 NAPLAN results, 10.2% of students nationally were in the “needs additional support” category for reading, and 9.6% were in that category for numeracy.2 These are not labels for children; they are a warning that the system has not consistently provided the learning conditions children need.
The geography of disadvantage is equally stark. In 2025, attendance in Years 1–10 averaged 89.8% in major cities, 81.4% in remote areas and 65.1% in very remote areas. The gap was greater for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students than for non-Indigenous students.3 Attendance data should not be used to blame students, families or communities. It signals the importance of safe transport, stable housing, community-controlled services, culturally strong schooling, flexible provision and sustained local relationships.
The Better and Fairer Schools Agreements are an important foundation. They provide an estimated $16.5 billion in additional Commonwealth support over 2025–26 to 2034–35 and are intended to put government schools on the path to 100% of the Schooling Resource Standard by 2034.4 This must be treated as a floor, not a finish line. Schools need predictable recurrent funding, transparent reporting of equity loadings, and the capacity to recruit and retain teachers, educational assistants, counsellors, speech pathologists, youth workers and First Nations staff.
Education inequality continues after Year 12. In 2024, low-SES students accounted for 17.0% of domestic higher-education commencements even though low-SES areas account for around 25% of the population benchmark used by the Department.5 In the following admissions cycle, low-SES applicants had an 82% offer rate, compared with 88% among high-SES applicants.6 These gaps emerge long before university applications, but they are made worse by costs of study, transport, technology, unpaid placements and housing.
HELP avoids upfront tuition charges for Commonwealth-supported students, but it does not make education free. At 2023–24, Australia had 2.93 million HELP debtors owing $81.0 billion, with an average outstanding balance of $27,640.7 The later 20% debt reduction was a welcome correction, but a one-off relief measure does not settle the principle. A society that expects people to retrain repeatedly through longer working lives should not convert every new qualification into a personal liability.
WeRise therefore proposes a lifelong learning guarantee: genuinely fully funded public schools; tuition-free public TAFE and first undergraduate qualifications; living-cost support for learners with least capacity to self-fund; and equity-based investment guided by transparent evidence. The goal is not to subsidise privilege. It is to make the freedom to learn real.
Part 02
Evidence and Experience
Education: what other countries show
Other systems show what public commitment can achieve
Finland · Norway · Ireland · New Zealand
International comparison does not provide a plug-and-play model: Australia’s federal structure, large geography, First Nations responsibilities, mixed school sectors and HELP system are distinctive. But comparison makes one point clear. High-performing and equitable systems commonly treat core education as a publicly financed service, not a consumer product. Nordic systems show that tuition-free tertiary education can coexist with strong public funding.
Ireland illustrates a more partial model, where the state covers undergraduate tuition but students still pay a contribution. New Zealand’s school-lunch program demonstrates that education participation depends on material conditions such as food security and wellbeing, not instruction alone. The lesson for Australia is that free tuition must be accompanied by equitable resourcing and supports that make attendance and completion achievable.
Finland · Ongoing; OECD policy review published 2020 and Right to Learn Programme analysis published 2022
Tuition-free tertiary education for most students, with high public financing across education; equity and quality measures under the Right to Learn Programme National system covering comprehensive schooling, early childhood education and tertiary education
- Finland spent 5.5% of GDP on education, compared with an OECD average of 5.0%. []
- A high proportion of Finnish education expenditure is publicly sourced. []
- Tuition remains free for most tertiary students. []
- OECD reports that Finland combines high student performance with favourable PISA equity indicators. []
- The Right to Learn analysis focuses on financing equity and quality, early-childhood participation and equalising opportunity through local schools. []
Finland is not proof that tuition-free education alone produces equity; it has a different tax base, governance structure and social-security system. But it demonstrates the coherence of a system that treats education financing, local-school equity and free tertiary learning as connected public responsibilities rather than separate markets. Australia can adapt the principle while tailoring delivery to its federal and geographic context.
Norway · Ongoing; included in OECD Education at a Glance 2024
Tuition-free public tertiary education for national students, with public financial support systems operating alongside study National higher-education system
- OECD identifies Norway as one of the countries in which public institutions offer tuition-free education to national students. []
- OECD groups Norway with Denmark, Finland and Sweden as tuition-free public tertiary systems. []
- The comparison demonstrates that tuition-free public tertiary education is an established policy model among advanced economies, rather than an untested proposal. []
- Tuition policy alone does not measure affordability because student living costs, grants and access supports also shape participation. []
Norway confirms that a high-income country can provide public tertiary education without charging domestic students tuition. The Australian lesson is not to copy a single Nordic model, but to combine a phased removal of tuition charges with income support, regional provision, disability access and properly funded institutions.
Ireland · Free Fees Initiative established 1995; current 2025–26 settings
State payment of tuition fees for eligible full-time undergraduate students in approved institutions; students ordinarily pay a student contribution of €2,500 in 2025–26, subject to grant supports Estimated more than 154,000 eligible undergraduate students in 2025–26
- The State pays tuition-fee costs for eligible full-time undergraduate students through the Free Fees Initiative. []
- The 2025–26 student contribution is €2,500 per year. []
- The 2026 annual options paper estimated the State-funded tuition component covered more than 154,000 students in 2025–26. []
- Budget 2026 reduced the student contribution from €3,000 to €2,500, at a one-year cost of approximately €52.9 million. []
- Eligibility is limited by residency, nationality/status, course and institution conditions. []
Ireland is a useful transitional model but also a warning against calling education “free” while retaining substantial compulsory annual charges. Australia should avoid reproducing a two-tier entitlement based on strict residency or course rules, and should treat the remaining living-cost barrier as central rather than peripheral.
New Zealand · Ka Ora, Ka Ako Healthy School Lunches Programme; evaluations commissioned 2022–2024, with ongoing reporting in 2026
Government-funded free healthy school lunches delivered to participating schools, with school and supplier delivery models National targeted program; 2025 full-year expenditure reported as NZ$130 million
- New Zealand’s Ministry of Education reported NZ$130 million in program expenditure for the 2025 full year. []
- The Ministry commissioned independent evaluations from 2022 to 2024 and a technical evaluation report. []
- Evaluation reporting identified shifts in educational engagement and wellbeing, alongside wider social effects. []
- Earlier interim evaluation findings reported improved food security and mental wellbeing, particularly among disadvantaged learners. []
- The program is monitored through termly school surveys covering feedback, perceived benefits and food waste. []
Learning policy cannot ignore hunger, household pressure or wellbeing. A national school-food guarantee – initially focused on high-disadvantage and remote communities, co-designed with First Nations organisations and local providers – could complement school funding and attendance strategies. Australia should commission independent evaluation from the outset and avoid overstating short-term academic effects.
Part 03
Costs and Trade-offs
The cost of Education
The cost is real. So is the cost of exclusion.
A staged education guarantee should be costed transparently, separating new outlays from existing spending and long-term returns.
A serious education platform must distinguish gross expenditure, fiscal offsets and long-term social returns. The immediate cost of moving to free public TAFE and undergraduate education would depend on policy design: whether it covers first qualifications only, applies to all public providers, phases out student contributions by discipline or cohort, and how institutions are funded to replace lost fee revenue. Reliable current modelling of a full Australian tuition-free guarantee was not identified in the sources reviewed; it should not be invented for political convenience.
What is clear is that Australia already makes substantial public investments in education and student financing. Government recurrent school expenditure was $91.0 billion in 2023–24. [] Universities reported $6.8 billion in HELP payments in 2024, illustrating the annual scale of loan-financed student contributions within higher education. [] The Government’s one-off 20% HELP debt reduction was expected to reduce debt by around $16 billion for more than 3 million people, showing that debt relief is itself a large fiscal choice. []
The proposed approach should therefore be staged: first complete full SRS funding and guarantee equity loadings; then abolish fees in priority public VET and shortage areas; then progressively replace undergraduate student contributions with direct public grants to institutions. Net cost must be independently modelled by Treasury, the Parliamentary Budget Office or an equivalent transparent process. Claims about long-run returns should be clearly labelled as projections. The Department has estimated that attaining the Universities Accord target could add $240 billion in workforce income through to 2050, but this is a modelled estimate, not cash available today.
| Item | Amount | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Additional Commonwealth public-school funding under Better and Fairer Schools Agreements | -$16.5 billion over 2025–26 to 2034–35 | Existing announced commitment; intended to support a path to 100% SRS for public schools by 2034 |
| Government recurrent expenditure on school education | -$91.0 billion in 2023–24 | Existing annual school expenditure baseline across governments; not the marginal cost of the WeRise policy |
| HELP payments reported by universities | -$6.8 billion in 2024 | Proxy for annual loan-financed payments to higher-education providers; not a complete estimate of tuition-free replacement funding |
| One-off HELP debt reduction | approximately $16 billion | Government measure benefiting more than 3 million people; shows fiscal scale of retrospective debt relief |
| Potential additional workforce income if Accord attainment target is achieved | +$240 billion to 2050 in 2023 dollars | Departmental modelled cumulative income effect; not a budget saving and contingent on attaining target |
| Net cost estimate of a full tuition-free public TAFE and undergraduate guarantee | Not yet reliably costed | Requires independent design-specific costing that accounts for fee replacement, student-support expansion, provider capacity and HELP interactions |
The strongest objections to Education
This is the strongest fiscal objection.
Replacing student contributions, expanding student support, completing SRS funding and building workforce capacity would require substantial recurrent expenditure. The dossier does not claim a verified gross or net price for the full package because no design-specific independent costing was identified. That uncertainty must be fixed before adoption. The response is not to deny cost, but to publish a staged, independently costed plan that distinguishes existing spending, additional expenditure, tax choices and projected long-term returns. The $240 billion income effect associated with the Universities Accord target is a departmental projection, not an immediate budget offset.
- “Universal benefits subsidise people who could afford to pay.”
A universal public system can indeed provide a benefit to high-income households.
However, means-testing every service creates administrative burdens, stigma and exclusion errors, while public provision maintains broad political support. The better design is universal access paired with progressive taxation and needs-weighted funding. A wealthy student can contribute more through the tax system; a low-income student should not be required to prove hardship before accessing learning.
- “Removing fees will not solve inequality.”
Correct.
Unequal school preparation, housing insecurity, disability access, racism, caring responsibilities and regional distance shape participation long before a tuition invoice arrives. Ireland’s Free Fees Initiative retains a material annual student contribution, and Nordic systems operate alongside stronger social supports. Fee reform should therefore be one part of a package including living-cost support, school equity funding, pathways, local provision and support for completion.
- “More funding does not necessarily improve outcomes.”
Also correct if funding is poorly targeted, staff are unavailable, programs lack evidence or accountability is weak.
The Productivity Commission found that limitations in publicly available school-level spending data for priority cohorts reduce accountability. The response is transparent reporting, independent evaluation, workforce planning and investment in interventions with credible evidence – not simply distributing untied money.
- “Universities and TAFEs could be weakened if fees disappear.”
If governments abolish student charges without replacing income, providers could cut courses, casualise staff or constrain places.
This is a real risk. The policy must guarantee indexed replacement funding, quality standards, regional and equity loadings, and capital investment. Public funding should not become a blank cheque: institutions should publish outcomes in access, progression, completion, student wellbeing and teaching quality.
- “National policy will override local and First Nations control.”
Central funding can become top-down compliance.
This is especially dangerous in remote and First Nations education. A national guarantee should set rights and minimum resources, while communities and local systems retain meaningful authority over implementation. Co-design, community-controlled delivery, language and culture must be built into governance rather than added as consultation after decisions have been made.
Part 04
The Australian Design
How Education would work in Australia
Build a lifelong public education guarantee
Fully fund public schools first, then make post-school learning genuinely free and accessible.
The Australian design should begin with a principle: education is a public good delivered across a lifetime, not a one-off service purchased by families or financed by debt. Implementation should be staged, federally coordinated and locally delivered.
Stage one: complete fair school funding. The Commonwealth and every state and territory should deliver the full Schooling Resource Standard for government schools no later than 2030, rather than allowing the pathway to run through 2034.
The current Better and Fairer Schools Agreements commit an estimated $16.5 billion in additional Commonwealth funding and set public schools on a pathway to 100% of the SRS by 2034, with states generally contributing at least 75% and the Commonwealth rising to 25% in participating jurisdictions.1 The policy should require public reporting on how equity loadings reach students, especially those with disability, First Nations students, students in low-SES communities, remote students and students learning English as an additional language.
Stage two: guarantee the conditions for learning. Funding should support a national minimum entitlement to qualified teachers, small-group literacy and numeracy intervention, school counsellors and wellbeing staff, inclusive education capability, access to devices and connectivity, and community-led attendance initiatives. In remote communities, design must be led with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations and families, not imposed from Canberra. In 2025, attendance in very remote schools was 65.1%, compared with 89.8% in major cities.2 The response must address transport, health, housing, safety, language and trust – not merely attendance compliance.
Stage three: make post-school education free at the point of learning. Start by abolishing tuition fees for public TAFE qualifications in priority and foundation areas, including literacy, numeracy, care, construction, clean energy, education support and digital skills. Then phase out student contributions for a first public undergraduate qualification. The Commonwealth should replace lost fee revenue with transparent, indexed institutional grants tied to quality, equity, regional access and completion – not a volume-only funding race.
Stage four: make participation possible. Tuition-free education is insufficient if students cannot afford rent, food, transport, devices, childcare or unpaid placements. Student income support must be reviewed alongside fee reform, with particular attention to independent young people, parents, people with disability, regional students and First Nations students. The evidence of low-SES underrepresentation in higher education – 17.0% of commencements compared with a 25% population benchmark – shows why access policy must address material barriers.3
The realistic timeline is ten years: two years for legislation, funding agreements and pilot design; years three to five for full SRS delivery and initial fee abolition; and years six to ten for universal first-qualification coverage, workforce expansion and independent evaluation.
Part 05
People and Transition
Who Education affects
The people the system asks to carry the most
Education inequality falls hardest on learners already facing economic, geographic and social barriers.
The beneficiaries of a lifelong public education guarantee are broad: children in under-resourced schools, families facing cost-of-living pressure, apprentices and TAFE students, university students, career changers and employers that need a skilled workforce. But the gains would be greatest for people who currently confront multiple barriers at once.
Students in low-SES communities are a central priority. In 2024, people from low-SES areas accounted for 17.0% of domestic higher-education commencements, despite representing about 25% of the reference population. [] In the 2025 undergraduate admissions data, 18% of low-SES applicants received no offer, compared with 12% of high-SES applicants. [] These figures show that the opportunity gap is not an individual failure of aspiration. It reflects unequal access to subject choice, careers advice, tutoring, digital tools, transport, stable housing and the financial ability to study.
Case study
A Year 12 student in outer-suburban Brisbane receives an offer for a teaching degree but lives in a household that cannot contribute to rent near campus, transport, a laptop replacement or the unpaid placement periods required by the course. HELP means she can defer tuition, but it does not pay weekly bills. A fee-free degree plus adequate income support and placement assistance changes the decision from “Can I risk this?” to “Can I study and complete?”
First Nations students, particularly in remote and very remote communities, need a design grounded in self-determination and local capability. Nationally in 2025, attendance for Years 1–10 was 81.4% in remote areas and 65.1% in very remote areas, compared with 89.8% in major cities. [] The Productivity Commission notes that the attendance gap is larger for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, especially at higher year levels. [] These data require investment in community-controlled partnerships, local language and culture, teacher housing, safe transport and flexible pathways – not punitive measures.
Students with disability, regional learners, migrants and refugees, mature-age learners, carers and people retraining after redundancy also benefit from flexible, publicly funded pathways. Their needs often include accessible materials, part-time study, local campuses, online support and recognition of prior learning.
Case study
A 42-year-old regional worker displaced by industrial change wants to train in renewable-energy maintenance. The nearest provider is several hours away, the course requires tools and travel, and time away from paid work creates an immediate income loss. Removing fees helps, but a serious learning guarantee also provides local delivery, travel support and a living-cost bridge.
Opposition will come from those concerned about fiscal cost, universities anxious about replacement revenue, some private providers concerned about competition, and advocates of targeting who oppose universal benefits. These concerns deserve answers. The policy must preserve institutional quality, regulate provider funding and focus additional resources where need is greatest. But the existence of competing interests is not a reason to retain a system in which family resources still shape educational freedom.
Part 06
Related policies
Education sits within a wider set of WeRise policies.
- Learning & Becoming: more WeRise policies in this pillar
- WeRise: all 29 policies across seven pillars
Notes
Sources and Supporting Documents
- Australian Government Department of Education. Better and Fairer Schools Agreements 2025–2034 Fact Sheet. Australian Government Department of Education. 2025. www.education.gov.au
- Australian Government Department of Education. The Better and Fairer Schools Agreement (2025–2034). Australian Government Department of Education. 2026. www.education.gov.au
- Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. 2026 NAPLAN National Results: Improvements in Numeracy Levels Alongside Areas for Continued Action. ACARA. 2026. www.acara.edu.au
- Australian Government Department of Education. Key Findings from the 2024 Higher Education Student Statistics. Australian Government Department of Education. 2026. www.education.gov.au
- Australian Government Department of Education. Undergraduate Applications and Offers 2025. Australian Government Department of Education. 2025. www.education.gov.au
- Australian Government Department of Education. Australian Universities Accord Final Report. Australian Government Department of Education. 2024. www.education.gov.au
- Australian Government Department of Education. HELP Indexation and Debt Reduction. Australian Government Department of Education. 2026. www.education.gov.au
- Australian Government Department of Education. Finance 2024: Financial Reports of Higher Education Providers. Australian Government Department of Education. 2026. www.education.gov.au
- Productivity Commission. Report on Government Services 2026: School Education. Australian Government. 2026. www.pc.gov.au
- Productivity Commission. Review of the National School Reform Agreement: Study Report. Australian Government. 2022. assets.pc.gov.au
- Parliament of Australia, Parliamentary Library. Universities Accord (Cutting Student Debt by 20 Per Cent) Bill 2025: Bills Digest. Parliament of Australia. 2025. www.aph.gov.au
- New Zealand Ministry of Education. Reporting and Monitoring for Healthy School Lunches. New Zealand Government. 2026. www.education.govt.nz
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