[liedra]

Yet another reason I'm glad I went through the Australian system... government funded loans and subsidised education (I paid about 2.5k AUD per year for my degree, which is about US$2200, at one of the top universities in Australia), where the loans gather no interest aside from inflation and you don't have to start paying them back until you earn over a certain amount (and then the payments are automatically taken from your pay, much like tax). Great system, imo.

It's changed a bit since I went to uni, but the general idea is still there: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tertiary_education_fees_in_Aust...

I remember being horrified when I saw my friend's HECS debt was around $8000 AUD... yet compared with this, it's peanuts!

[robryan]

It's about $7000 a year for HECS subsidised uni now, well for me anyway, just looking at that wikipedia entry you need to earn at least $42000 a year and at that rate you would be paying back $1600.

[liedra]

I assume it's $1600/year that you'd be paying back :) That's still not bad (I finished uni in 2003 and the Howard government was busy killing VSU and pushing the fees up at the time). Also, I believe it's tiered depending on what sort of degree you are studying too? So if you do arts or nursing or something that's either desperately wanted or not very "useful", it's a lot cheaper than if you do medicine or vet science.