The government has promised to wipe $16 billion off the country’s collective student loan debt. A one-off payment factored into the 2025 Federal Budget would cut all debt on the Higher Education Loan Program (HELP), formerly known as HECS, by 20 per cent.
That would reduce debt for about three million Australians on June 1. The average HECS-HELP debt fell by $1,200 last year after a retroactive move to reduce the blow of indexation.
Previously it had been tied to inflation and students copped significant increases, in some cases pushing their debt higher despite a year of making required payments.
The…
