Photographer : Steve Rhodes |
It’s hard to live in Moscow these days. Besides the Siberian chill, an enormous gap between the rich and the poor and a business sector more corrupt than Aussie wheat officials in Baghdad, Moscow was recently named the world’s most expensive city to live in.
Though Australia, with its baking hot summers, passion for beer over vodka and history of stable democratic rule might not immediately see the similarities between its situation and that of the Muscovites, for the younger generation economic concerns are too growing graver. Young Australians are feeling the financial pinch, to the point where we’ve been labelled the ‘most debt-ridden generation in history’—a claim backed up recently with news that one in five bankruptcies happens to an under 30.
We study longer, spend more money on technology and travel farther than our parents. But is it time to grow up?
Fruit prices are up 112 per cent on those of a decade ago; health care is up 50 per cent, and the cost of child care has increased 90 per cent. Add in the Howard Government’s 2005 allowance of a 25 per cent HECS fee increase and we can feel the pseudo-Siberian economic chill set in. It’s little wonder that 500,000 Australians aged over 50 have children living at home.
Education, some say, is the best investment a person can make. But it’s a costly one —by 2008, Australian university students are expected to owe the Commonwealth $19 billion in fees. So, if you have your heart set on a career in cardiology, the law or whatever career an arts degree leads to, it may be more difficult than you think.
Recent increases in HECS fees are plunging young Australians deeper into debt and discouraging the financially disadvantaged from attending university at all. Universities and the government claim that higher fees promote a better standard of learning, but what’s the point if there’s nobody to access it?
In the past ten years other developed nations have increased their average government spending on tertiary education by almost 50 per cent. In contrast, Australia’s government expenditure has shrunk markedly. A fairer education system that enables young people to go into the working world without debt already upon their shoulders can only be achieved by greater funding for the ‘Clever Country’.
But we also owe it to ourselves to take action in ensuring our financial security. Much has been made of young people’s addiction to mobile phones and the high price being paid to support this habit. Researching the contract before signing up for a phone; allocating a certain amount per month (and not exceeding that) towards the phone bill; saving money by texting, not talking; foregoing the Crazy Frog ring tone in favour of something both cheaper and less likely to draw noise pollution complaints from the neighbours—all these are money-saving strategies that, if learned while young, can be put to use later on when, say, upgrading to a plasma screen TV or finding a flight to Prague. It’s simple, cautious approaches towards how we spend our money that will enable young people to avoid being in debt before they are required to pay tax.
The best way to avoid the debt trap is to know about it. Young people, under-equipped for the adult working world cannot be expected to cope in an economic landscape where accessing a credit card is easier than buying a decent-sized banana. So it’s up to us—and the government, and the companies that so readily take our money—to educate ourselves about how we ought to spend our money.
How do I know this?
AAP 2006, ‘Fifth of bankrupts under 30’,
The Age, 24 September,
http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/fifth-of-ba...
Department of Education, Science and Training,
going to uni,
http://www.goingtouni.gov.au/
Finfacts,
Global/world cost of living rankings,
http://www.finfacts.com/costofliving.htm
Radar blog 2004, ‘Up to our HECS in debt’,
Sydney Morning Herald,
http://radar.smh.com.au/archives/2004/04/up_to_our...
Ryan, P 2006, ‘The country needs a fair go’,
The Age, 21 September,
http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/the-country...
Wade, M 2006, ‘So, who needs necessities, anyway?’,
The Age, 18 September,
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/so-who-need...
Youthcentral,
Phones and phone plans,
http://www.youthcentral.vic.gov.au/ViewPage.action...
