Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (Charges) Bill 2021 and another

The majority voted in favour of a motion to pass the bills in the Senate. In parliamentary jargon, they voted to read them for a third time. Because the bills had already passed in the House of Representatives, they will now become law.

What do the bills do?

According to the bills digest, the two bills were introduced:

to create a framework for the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA), Australia’s independent national higher education regulator, to begin phasing-in cost recovery arrangements from 1 January 2022.

In other words, the bill will allow TEQSA to seek more money from universities to cover certain government costs in respect to the tertiary sector. Read the bills digest for more detail on what costs will be recovered from universities.

This bill is controversial in light of the dire financial situation most Australian universities are now in, mostly due to a combination of government funding cuts and COVID-related drops in international student intakes.