Populist policies will hit us hard
Tay Tian Yan, TMI
There is a country well endowed with natural resources and boasting a highly efficient, incorrupt government. Her citizens nevertheless have to pay pretty hefty taxes. Income tax rate is as high as 40 per cent, not to mention an additional 10 per cent consumer tax.
This country is most positively rich. I’m not going to keep you in suspense. It’s Australia.
But sorry, Australia doesn’t provide free tertiary education. On the contrary, tuition fees are sky high, about A$30,000 (RM96,000) a year for an ordinary university, and this figure is growing at an annual rate of 10 per cent.
There are three ways young Australians can gain access to universities:
1. Their families provide part of the expenses, and some parents actually emphasise they have secured loans for their children’s education.
2. Bank loans, which will have to be paid back upon graduation.
3. Part-time jobs such as restaurant waiters, apple pickers, etc.
It’s hard indeed, but for the sake of better future prospects, exorbitant prices still have to be paid.
Australian students are a very practical lot. All that they can wish for is not-so-drastic increases in tuition fees and more humane bank interest rates. Alternatively, they can count on their parents to fork out a little more.
They don’t take to the streets, demanding the government take over their burdens for the simple reason that they made the choice of attending the universities themselves, and should therefore not get the public to share their burdens.
The opposition parties never pledge free tertiary education as they know they won’t be able to honour it anyway.
There is another country endowed with reasonable resources. The government is of mediocre efficiency and accountability levels.
The tax rate in this country is not that high, being capped at 26 per cent, but given the not-so-high income levels of ordinary wage earners, such a rate appears to be pretty unbearable.
This country is by no means a wealthy state, at best a middle-income country. You might have guessed it. It’s Malaysia.
It won’t be too hard for young Malaysians to attend universities. There are so many of them around, in fact way too many!
Tuition fees can be as low as RM2,000 to RM3,000 a year for public universities, RM30,000 to RM40,000 (non-medical courses) for private universities.
Young Malaysians need not beg for bank loans or work part-time to pay their tuition fees.
If they go to a government university, 90 per cent of the expenses have already been absorbed by the government (from taxpayers’ pockets to be exact). The remaining 10 per cent can be settled with PTPTN loans (which many use to acquire the latest smartphones).
If they opt for a private university, they need both the PTPTN and family support.
