The University of Western Australia has become the first institution to announce its new prices should the government’s plan to deregulate fees go ahead. Last month, vice chancellor Paul Johnson, who is one of the most vocal and enthusiastic champions of deregulation, announced fee increases would be around 30 percent.

At $16,000 per year for any undergraduate course, the new fee structure would result in almost $50,000 in debt for a 3-year bachelor degree, and more than $100,000 for medicine. The university administrators have bragged that students will be able to obtain arts degrees for the low price of “less than $50,000”, not seeming to realise that for poorer and working class students, the debt just might not be worth it.

The announcement repudiates education minister Christopher Pyne’s claims that fees would actually go down. “I’m not going to respond to the different statements or claims being made by particular vice-chancellors,” he said a few months ago, “because at the end of the day, I think competition will drive prices down and students will be the winner in terms of quality and price.”

Now, ignoring the egg on his face, Pyne is heaping praise on UWA for ending the “speculation” and “fear mongering” about fees. But for those opposed to the attacks, concerns about skyrocketing debt are far from pacified by UWA’s announcement. Rather, it confirms that fees are bound to increase dramatically around the country.

It is likely that fee increases won’t stop at UWA’s proposed level. Deregulation will allow universities to experiment with and change prices over time. That UWA has set its first bid so high does not bode well for the cost of degrees in the future, if deregulation occurs. Other unknowns include postgraduate degree prices, which UWA has said are a “work in progress”, and whether international student fees will be forced up by the logic of domestic fee increases.

While the university administrators have been rubbing their hands with glee over the prospect of deregulation, the UWA student guild has offered barely a peep of resistance. The guild published a sycophantic and uncritical media release to coincide with Johnson’s fee-hike announcement, which “stands beside the university” and makes excuses for the fee increases, placing the blame entirely on poor government funding.

But it is clear that UWA has jumped at the opportunity to set higher fees and its announcement will no doubt encourage universities around Australia to do the same.