Nothing Unique about latest for-profit college rort

2015-10-28

The Greens have slammed Unique College for ripping-off vulnerable young people and leaving Australian taxpayers to foot the bill.

Greens spokesperson on Higher Education, Senator Robert Simms, said this latest scandal is yet another indicator that for-profit VET providers are unfit to practise in Australia.

"I am disappointed that yet another for-profit VET provider has been found to be selling vulnerable students an expensive yet worthless course while leaving taxpayers to foot the bill," Senator Simms said.

Legal action initiated by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission shows Unique International received $14.9m in federal government payments via the VET FEE-HELP loan scheme. This delivered the company a profit of more than $11m in six months.

The Chair of the ACCC has said that Unique intentionally ‘sign[ed] people up who may well have had very little interest in the course, [and] may not have known what they were signing up for'. This business model must be stopped.

"The Education Minister, Senator Birmingham must step in to ensure that Unique College reimburses the Commonwealth. Unique's students should have their loans cancelled and our broken for-profit VET system needs to be fixed so that we can stop this seemingly endless sequence of dodgy RTO's ripping off students and the taxpayer."

Media contact: Cambell Klose 0417 173 508