“Swimming in debt”: Sydney’s $14 billion student loan burden

Foster recently took a loan to buy a home unit and says her HELP debt adds to her sense of financial stress.

“I feel like I’m just swimming in debt at this point and I don’t know when I won’t be swimming in debt, to be honest,” she said.

“It is frustrating just thinking about it. I love this career … but with the cost of living, and how much has been already added on to the HECS debt, I’m definitely not going to be able to pay it off as quickly as I was planning.”

Foster grew up in western Sydney and knows people who have decided against doing a degree because they were concerned about accruing debt.

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“They just thought it wasn’t worth it in the end, which is pretty sad,” she said.

Foster says the plan to cut student debt is “a small step in the right direction” but believes more should be done to reduce financial pressure on young people.

For the past two decades, females have been undertaking higher education in larger numbers than males; as a result far more women now have a student debt than men. Nationally, 62 per cent of those aged 30 to 39 years with a HELP debt are women, federal government data shows.

Adam Leto, chief executive of the Western Sydney Leaderships Dialogue, said the distribution of student debt across Sydney dispelled claims that cutting HELP debts would benefit only wealthy professionals.

“Some of the commentary saying this policy is just for the city’s rich kids, I think is a little out of touch,” he said.

The most recent census revealed the number of people gaining a bachelor’s degree in Greater Western Sydney jumped by 29 per cent in the five years to 2021. The biggest increase in tertiary educated workers across western Sydney in that period was in the healthcare and social assistance sector, while education was third largest.

“I wouldn’t call carers, nurses and teachers wealthy professionals,” Leto said.

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Blacktown, Parramatta and the Hills Shire councils added more adults with a degree than any other local government areas in NSW between 2016 and 2021.

“The young generation of western Sydney are increasingly educated, mobile and aspirational, and any policy which has the potential to open up more opportunities for higher learning and skills development should be encouraged,” Leto said.

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