“School and community members increasingly report that young people of Pacific Island heritage … who would otherwise transition to higher education do not because their residency status precludes their eligibility for essential HECS-HELP.”

“This is a lose–lose situation. The consequences are not just the social exclusion of a disadvantaged community, with costs of isolation and social disengagement for community members. Australia at large deprives itself of the benefits that productive engagement through social inclusion of the Pacific Island communities could deliver. Instead of a mutually rewarding outcome, both sides suffer the consequences of this exclusion and alienation, which destabilise and disrupt the shared life of the nation. Entrenching social exclusion of these disadvantaged young people diminishes us all.”

Read the full article, Unlucky in a lucky country, by Judith Kearny from Griffith University.