Aussie student’s staggering debt increase

The devastating impact of inflation on the nation’s biggest student debt holders has been revealed.

The remaining balance of all student loans across Australia went up by 7.1 per cent in June – the largest increase in three decades – after an annual adjustment to keep loans at pace with the cost of living.

A freedom of information (FOI) request submitted in April has exposed how much debt that has piled on top of struggling students and former students.

One anonymous former scholar saw their High Higher Education Loan Program debt soar by $53,000 due to the latest indexation.

The increase brings their total debt to an eye watering total of $790,473.20.

It’s the largest student loan in the country, according to the Australian Taxation Office documents.

The second highest debt now sits at $531,000, and the top ten highest loans are all above $328,000.

The smallest loan on the list – at number 100 – is $235,000.

Student HECS-HELP loans are indexed annually in line with consumer price index but this year’s hike carried a particularly painful sting for debt holders.

The rate of indexation has almost doubled since last year when loans increased by 3.9 per cent.

It was a massive jump after the first year of the pandemic saw the CPI drop to 0.6 per cent.

Prior to that, the highest indexation rate was at 2.6 per cent in 2014.

Someone who is still paying off a HECS debt from 2013 will have already seen their debt increase 10 times.

About three million Australians had some form of student debt, totalling about $74bn, as of June 2022.

The average student loan of $22,636 was increased by about $1584.52 during the June hike, according to research from the Parliamentary Library.

The federal government faced considerable pressure from crossbench MPs and the National Students Union to reduce the indexation rate to a more manageable size, or even freeze it all together, last month.