The government of Australia has regulated admissions to medical schools by limiting, or capping, the number of full-fee-paying students entering each class. This was done to ensure students using loans and government subsidies would have places secured for their education. The recent decision to remove the cap has resulted in more full-fee students.
Since class size cannot be increased beyond certain limits due to laboratory space and other considerations, any increase in the number of full-fee students would result in a decrease in government, or Commonwealth, supported students.
A Commonwealth-supported student pays $9,000 per year while international students pay $60,000 per year. For full-fee Australian students, the cost is $51,000 per year, or a total exceeding $200,000 for the four years of medical school.
According to Dr Rosanna Capolingua, president of the Australian Medical Association from 2007 to 2009, the concern of full-fee medical degrees involves the money the universities gain from these students. The schools will be tempted to allocate more spaces to receive the additional funds, thus crowding out other students, whether international or Commonwealth-supported. This could lead to two tiers of Australian medical students, full-fee and Commonwealth-supported.