Until now, Australian higher education students have been able to obtain government student loans at quite the discount—“with no interest payments other than those needed to keep pace with inflation”.

However, the government has changed the interest rate to around 4.5 percent, so that interest is pegged to the 10-year Treasury bond rate.

What does this mean?

Higher debt and more money to repay.

According to the Tertiary Education Union, “the new arrangements have a built-in bias against graduates with carer responsibilities, which will mainly be women”.

Essentially, if you take time off work to have a child, debt will be accruing during that time at a higher interest rate and you’ll be less prepared to pay it back because of wages not earned during that time.

The link seems tenuous, but the fact remains: the Australian government cannot support lending money at record rates to a citizenry accruing record debt.