Of all the people who benefit from one’s having a tertiary education, we should expect that most benefits would accrue to oneself. Those who would not go to university but for government subsidisation of their fees are precisely those who believe that their course is not worth it. And everyone else must be presumed to be getting an even worse deal out of it – and that’s taking no account of the fact that they’re being forced to pay for it. The government subsidisation of university education is the largest single factor responsible for the spread of low quality standards, precisely because it severs the payment for the service from the receiving of the service.

While it is true that the requirement for each student to finance his own education is *unequal*, in the sense that it’s easier for those with more money or access to credit, that does not necessarily mean it’s *inequitable*, meaning unfair, since there is always the possibility that those who have the finances have have sacrificed other things in order to enable them to have the education; or that those who do not finance themselves chose to spend the money or time required into things that they considered more important. So while it may be unfair, on the other hand, it may not be. There can be no automatic presumption; and there’s probably no way of knowing, short of an individual inquiring in every single case.

Secondly, even if it is inequitable, that is a problem originating in the fact of private property. It’s caused by not having enough money. People who have more money can buy more and better stuff than people who have less, not just as to university educations, but with everything: fish, eggs, cars, magazines and so on. If there is to be a social or governmental remedy to the problem, it should not be to try to take over or regulate the particular market for services in question. It should be by direct cash donation to those who are considered deserving of it. Then the donee can go and buy what education etc. they think is best, and the universities can concentrate on providing it.

Andrew McLelland, who proposed an inspectorate for information purposes, is re-inventing the wheel. There is already an inspectorate for information purposes: it’s called the free market. While not perfect, governmental attempts to duplicate its information functions invariably prove worse and more expensive.

Probably the main reason why people don’t want to try to solve the problem of ‘inequity’ by direct cash handouts is because they fear, or know, that the recipient, instead of spending the money on improving his mind, is going to spend it on an extended surfing holiday, sipping pina coladas poolside, and come back with nada. (I remember during the 1970s when Whitlam first started handing out other peoples money to my brother to go to university. He spent it on a rather large block of hash; that was our idea of improving our minds LOL. He also caught a taxi from Bathurst to Yetholme. Still, anything to avoid inequity I suppose.) According to this line of thought, paternalism is the rationale for the intervention: not a problem of quality standards or inequity at all. If this is so, the taking of money from others, who may and probably did have a higher value use for it, would not have been justified in the first place, and government subsidisation should be rejected out of hand.

Fee restrictions should be abolished. Those who think that other people should have money given to them, should give it to them themselves.