The higher education reforms will give parents and students more options

It's important to remember that, even after these changes wash through the universities, students will contribute only just over a quarter of the cost of their education. The remaining three-quarters is contributed by taxpayers - many of whom have never seen inside a university.

The other aspect of the package that has been the subject of a scare campaign, is the opportunity that is provided to those universities that want to increase the number of full-fee-paying places offered to Australians.

Labor claims these places are at the expense of HECS places. Nothing could be further from the truth. The package provides for 31,500 new HECS places over the next five years. This includes the conversion of 25,000 marginally funded over-enrolments to fully funded HECS places at a cost of $347 million. Over-enrolled students in universities are only partially funded by the Commonwealth and have contributed to overcrowding. About 6500 additional places will be provided to the sector for nurses, teachers, doctors and to support population growth.

There are about 530,000 Australian undergraduate students in our universities. About 9400 of them are paying their own way without assistance from the taxpayer, the so-called "full-fee payers". That's about 2 per cent of students.

Labor wants these 9400 young people thrown off campus. That would not create one additional HECS place because these 9400 do not fill HECS places. It would simply mean 9400 fewer people in university.

The reforms propose that universities may choose to offer more full-fee-paying places - but no institution will be permitted to have more fee-paying students than it does HECS students, and any fee-paying places are in addition to HECS places, not in place of them.

Labor claims "full-fee payers" shouldn't be allowed in because their marks are below the HECS cut-off score. This is a ridiculous argument.

A young woman at Frankston High School may have her heart set on studying law at Melbourne University. She works extremely hard and receives a VCE score of 99.3. The kid in front of her at school gets 99.4 and gets a HECS place. Is she dumb? No. Is she rich? No.

This reverse elitism says that the merit-based allocation of HECS places should deny opportunities to Australians who want to pay their own way, while we welcome fee-paying students from overseas. Get real.

The government is now prepared to lend the young woman from Frankston money to allow her to do law.

There are only about 270 Australian undergraduate students in the whole country who face fees of $100,000 or more in fields such as dentistry, law and veterinary science in 16 of the 784 courses on offer. It is unfair that those from poorer families cannot at present even get started in those courses.

All fee-paying students will now have access to a $50,000 loan, with a 3.5 per cent interest rate, which they do not begin paying back until they are earning more than $30,000.

This package effectively abolishes fees at the university gate by making student union membership voluntary and offering loans to bright kids who missed out on a HECS place but want to take up a fee-paying place.

Reform is not easy, but its critics should stick to the facts.