Student debt is out of control.
Student debts are impacting people’s ability to obtain loans, their mental health, their ability to save up to buy a home or simply afford to live a good life.
Student debt is currently indexed in line with inflation. This year, with inflation so high, the average student debt was estimated to have risen by $923.
We desperately need to tackle the student debt crisis. That’s why we introduced a bill to freeze student debt.
Last year, Greens Deputy Leader and Education Spokesperson Senator Mehreen Faruqi introduced a bill to freeze student debt.
This bill will abolish indexation - essentially freezing all student debt - while fixing the repayment thresholds so that no one with a study debt will repay a cent of that debt until they’re earning above the median wage.
No one should be shackled with a growing debt sentence in order to study. The Greens’ bill is an urgent intervention to provide immediate cost of living relief for all those with study debts and is a step on the road to making education free for all.