The Federal government is making changes to way university students access HECS support.
Education Minister Dan Tehan has warned that future students will lose government financial subsidies if they fail more than half of their subjects in the first year.
The measure is designed to prevent students flunking loads of units as well as taking on more debt than they may be able to repay.
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According to The Age, students will also have to get rid of their debts for subjects when their progress has been affected by special circumstances.
Universities will also be under pressure to introduce new requirements that ensure a student is academically suitable for their chosen course.
The policy specifically says that if a student fails half of their first eight subjects in a degree then they won't be able to access HECS or HELP loans.
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Mr Tehan said: "These measures will ensure students can't take on a study load they won't complete, leaving them without a qualification but a large debt.
"The lack of transparency of a student's enrolment has allowed some non-genuine students to enrol and re-enrol at multiple providers at the same time."
The government has highlighted two examples where students racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in university debt by joining several courses and got little to no qualifications. It's estimated these measures will affect 2,500 students annually.
There was more than $66 billion in HELP loans held by the Australian government in 2018-19 and estimates suggest around 15 per cent of that will never be repaid.
This is on top of a measure introduced two years ago that restricted a student from accrueing more than $100,000 in university fee debt.
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The Federal government cracked down earlier this year on the fees associated with different courses and made sweeping changes that would make some degrees more expensive and others much cheaper. The aim is to encourage people to do courses that will eventually make themselves 'job ready' at the end of the degree.
As a result, some arts programs will have their fees skyrocket, while degrees relating to teaching, nursing, psychology, architecture, maths, science and engineering will be much cheaper.
Students wanting to study humanities degrees will have their fees jump by 113 per cent, while those choosing law and commerce will pay 28 per cent more. Some humanities courses will cost as much as $14,500 a year.
Medicine, dental and veterinary science degrees won't change in price.
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According to the Guardian, Education Minister Dan Tehan hopes this new directive will create 39,000 more university spots by 2023 and 100,000 by 2030.
The government copped severe criticism for the move that will affect loads of people's ability to afford to go into the courses they want.
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