University students are set to lose discounts on course fees after Labor agreed to back higher education measures it had previously opposed.
The opposition will support $1.1 billion in savings to be made by replacing student scholarships with loans and scrapping a 10 per cent discount on HECS-HELP up-front payments.
Those measures are contained in legislation that passed federal parliament's lower house on Tuesday.
Labor refused to back an efficiency dividend for universities and interest rate charges for some student debts.
The government split off those measures from the rest of the bill to take advantage of Labor's support for the loans and discount cuts.
Despite announcing some of those moves in government, Labor had opposed them when they were reintroduced by the coalition in 2013 and 2014.
They argued that those savings would be used to pay for changes to school funding, also known as the Gonski reforms, which have been abandoned by the government.
On Tuesday, Labor said it would now back two of the measures to fund its higher education policy announced earlier this year.
The deteriorating state of the budget was also cited.
The Australian Greens slammed the Labor party for exhuming its 2013 higher education cuts, arguing students would lose the $2000 student start up scholarship with start-up loans added to their university debt.
"This is another betrayal of students and the sector by a spineless Labor party," Greens higher education spokesman Robert Simms said.
WHAT WILL PASS WITH LABOR'S SUPPORT:
* Replacing the $2050 student start-up scholarships paid to university students receiving Youth Allowance, Austudy and ABSTUDY with an income-contingent loan payment of equivalent value.
* Those loans available on voluntary basis and must be repaid under similar arrangements to HELP debts.
* Remove the 10 per cent discount on paying university fees up-front.
