LOUISE ABBOTT (Monte Sant' Angelo Mercy College)
2006 HSC Band 6 results:
- Ancient History
- English Advanced
- Studies of Religion
BRIDGET ABBOTT (Monte Sant' Angelo Mercy College)
2010 HSC Band 6 results:
- Ancient History
- English Advanced
- Studies of Religion
FRANCES ABBOTT (Monte Sant' Angelo Mercy College)
2009 HSC Band 6 results:
- Visual Arts
It has been suggested that Frances was planning on undertaking a Bachelor of Design at a competing design school, Billy Blue. The academic requirements of this course are an ATAR of 64.
I'm really struggling here to fathom how a private school girl who attended Mont Sant' Angelo Mercy College (which has an ICSEA rating of 1176 and an average $20,500 annual fee) whose father was the established opposition leader at the time on a salary of about $200,000 (later boosted up to $360,000) and who only managed one Band 6 result in her HSC would be considered in need of, or deserving of, over $60,000 in scholarship.
The Whitehouse Institute website proclaims that they do not "... currently offer scholarships to get into the Bachelor of Design" and will only offer scholarships for study "...during the academic year to students who have formally commenced their studies and show exceptional ability and dedication."
However, the fact that Les Taylor, Chairman of the Board at the Whitehouse Institute and frequent financial supporter of the Liberal Party in the tens of thousands of dollars, approached Frances Abbott with the offer of a scholarship at the institute, and they then went out of their way to phone Ms Abbott four times in December 2010 to arrange a meeting for February 2011 to offer her a scholarship then and there, stinks terribly of a 'gift' to me.
The Abbott government's recent Budget has been lambasted for lowering the income threshold for HECS repayments by 10%, increasing interest rates on loans, and removing the cap on university fees which opens them up to exorbitant costs.
It is all well and good to make young Australians pay through the nose for their education when your own daughter is having her future spoonfed into her mouth with fine silverware.