Key points
- The Higher Education Access Act passed 214–96 at 7.54am after a near fourteen-hour sitting
- Tuition fees end at all twelve public universities from autumn 2027; a national maintenance grant follows
- Education Minister Halda Rennick: reform “settles a generation’s quiet debt”
- Concord leader Casmir Reyle demands the funding settlement be guaranteed in the autumn budget
- University leaders welcome the act but press for the October funding formula to track real costs
Session closes: what we learned
The press conferences are over and the chamber has emptied. The day’s substance in one line: the act is law, the money is promised, and the October funding formula is now the most important unpublished document in Coravian politics. Our full report and analysis are below; this live file is closing.
Fiscal Council: “credible but tightly drawn” stands
The independent Fiscal Council tells us its spring assessment of the funding plan — “credible but tightly drawn” — is unchanged by the act’s passage, and that it will re-score the scheme when the autumn budget publishes the levy schedule.
Student leaders address crowd outside the Assembly
National Student Assembly president Ivo Marek, to several hundred students still gathered on the steps: “This is the first budget line in living memory written for people who haven’t graduated yet.” The crowd has been there since the overnight sitting.
Vice-chancellors press for the funding formula
The vice-chancellors’ council welcomes the act but wants the October formula to reflect subject costs. Professor Adela Vantris of the University of Meridale: “The settlement must rise with real costs, not with headlines. Laboratory degrees already run at a deficit.”
Opposition: “a promise written in pencil”
Concord leader Casmir Reyle backs the abolition but attacks the financing, telling reporters the settlement must appear as a named, indexed line in the autumn budget: “A promise written in pencil is not a promise.”
Rennick: “the applause stops and the arithmetic starts”
Education Minister Halda Rennick briefs press on the chamber steps. On implementation: the funding formula publishes in October, first maintenance grants are paid from September 2027, and the ministry will report annually on capacity after modelling suggested applications could rise 12 per cent.
How the parties voted
The 214–96 margin breaks down as: government coalition 176 for, 3 against; Concord Party 31 for, 78 against on the financing clauses but for on final reading by whip’s arrangement; regional parties and independents 7 for, 15 against. Fourteen members were absent.
Welcome: the morning after the marathon
Good morning from the press gallery. The Assembly passed the Higher Education Access Act at 7.54am, 214 votes to 96, ending a sitting that began yesterday at six in the evening. Ministers brief at 10am; reaction is arriving faster than the coffee. Stay with us.