Australia's youth and the Federal budget

The 2014 Federal budget was appalling in a lot of ways - but the one that particularly sticks out is the especially mean-spirited treatment of Australia's youth.

The goal appears to be getting young people into work or further education.  In itself, that is an admirable goal, but the methods of achieving this have absolutely no hope in hell of making a difference.  Well, that's not exactly true - they will make a difference, but there is very little hope that this will be a positive one.

Let's start with the deregulation of university fees. There are two main issues here:

1. Creating a tiered system of tertiary education not based upon intelligence, skill or future potential, but upon how much one is willing (or able) to pay; 
2. The devaluation of education for education's sake.  The decision to go to university must be a career choice, and we expect that 17-18 year olds have enough self-knowledge to be able to commit to spending tens (possibly hundreds) of thousands of dollars on a degree that will satisfy their future career aspirations (because they'll be paying for it for a very long time). 

As a young person with no exact idea of what I want to do with my life, I might perhaps wish to spend a few years working before I commit to accruing such a large debt.   That's would be all well and good if the youth unemployment rate wasn't around 13% (much higher in some areas).  That's not to mention that there are very few jobs that one can get these days that don't require some experience, or some post-secondary study.  And let's not forget that anyone under 30 won't qualify for unemployment benefits for the first six months. 

So what is a young person to do?  If they can't get a job then they will have to study.  Universities and other tertiary education campuses become dumping grounds for students who have no inclination towards higher education, and no desire to be there.  It looks good politically though because it keeps them off the unemployment statistics. 

Then we have to consider the huge debts that we are forcing our young people to incur that will need to be paid back, with close to commercial rates of interest.  The young people of Australia already have very little hope of ever being able to afford a home, and their future education debts combined with house prices and cost of living simply push this slim hope into the impossible.

We are essentially forcing our young people to supplement our taxation revenues into the foreseeable future - to become indentured servants.  We are offering them very little in terms of incentive - just the slim hope that they might be able to find a job after they finish studying - no guarantees though, and they'll still have to wait six months to access the dole if they can't find a job. 

Our universities should be places of higher education for those who are so inclined.  We should stop requiring higher education for roles that can and should be learnt 'on the job'.  We should tackle the problem of youth unemployment so that the kids who want a job won't be forced into study, won't be forced to incur those debts.  At the very least, if we are going to force them into higher education, we should make every attempt to limit the costs of that education.

Is this really the Australia that we want to live in?  Is this really what we want for our children?