Deakin News | 27 May 2014
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Deakin University will freeze fees at pre-Budget levels for all students who start in 2014 to “provide fairness and certainty” for new Australian domestic students.
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Vice-chancellor Professor Jane den Hollander said it isn’t fair that those students who enroll at Deakin the day after 
the Budget will have different conditions than those who enrolled the day before the Budget.
“All of our students deserve to have a clear understanding of the costs of their degree and studies. In order to study well, they should not be anxious or constantly checking what their fees might be in 2016.
Deakin is more exposed to the timing of the changes than other universities as it operates on trimesters and the budget was announced in the middle of enrolments for its second trimester. Its decision means that come 2016, the university won’t charge higher deregulated fees for any of the 2014 cohort even though the government will be cutting per student funding by 20%.
We will treat the class of 2014 as one cohort, with the same (pre-budget) fees, for the duration of their undergraduate studies. To do otherwise would be unfair.
Professor den Hollander said Mr Pyne should extend grand¬fathering of fee deregulation and funding cuts to cover all students enrolled before the 2016 start date.
“That would be the honourable thing to do and that would give the 18 months that international students get,” she said.
If that wasn’t possible, grandfathering of the changes should be extended to at least January 2015 to give universities time to work out their fees and give students and parents fair notice of changes.