‘Band-aid’: debt relief fails to address inequitable pricing of degrees, university students say

National Union of Students president Ngaire Bogemann says the government’s plan to cut student debt by 20% doesn’t go far enough. Photograph: Ellen Smith/The Guardian

Ngaire Bogemann was in year 12 when the Morrison government announced drastic changes to increase the cost of arts degrees by 113%.

Now, more than four years later, she’s among hundreds of thousands of students who will have to wait until after the next election for any reprieve on their now-$50,000 arts degrees – despite the policy being slammed by Labor at the time as “deeply flawed”, “irrational” and an act of “economic and cultural vandalism”.