The latest university student numbers have sparked renewed debate about the Federal Government's controversial fee shake-up.
With lower cost course applications up, the Education Minister says the bid to steer graduates into critical employment areas is working.
But critics say the policy will simply burden some graduates with decades of debt.
Years of hard work at school paid off for Will Chen when he was accepted into a double law and creative intelligence and innovation degree at the University of Technology Sydney.
But with a new hike in university fees, it will come at a cost for the 18-year-old.
"I think I have to pay about 20 grand more overall so it definitely was a consideration but in the long term I hope to be able to pay it off if i get a good job and get into what I want to do," says the university student.
Australian National University education researcher Andrew Norton says preliminary 2021 university application data reveals a mixed bag for the course shake-up designed to steer graduates in the direction of future jobs.
"There do seem to be some courses like education which have become much cheaper where there has been a fairly big increase in demand. But other courses they are trying to promote like engineering or science have relatively small increases," Mr Norton says.
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