I'm not surprised by the mention of this by politicians. You do the sums and most debt won't ever be repaid under the proposed new scheme. There will be students graduating with 80k - 100k of debt which is increasing at 5% per annum. They won't need to pay it back until their income exceeds 50k but even then the repayment rate is 4%. i.e. their total debt will still be increasing each year even when they are paying it back. Currently the HECS repayment rate is something like 8% when your income is 80k. Even at that rate there would still probaby be debt remaining after 30 years of work.
