Courtesy of JQ (and he sent this to me ages ago, I've been lagging in posting!):


Here in sunny Australia, we follow the American model in all things. As per college, our government charges a lot of money for the privilege of education, like AUD$30,000 (about US$27,000) for a simple engineering degree for example. Now enter the Queensland Tertiary Admissions Centre (QTAC). They are a bureaucratic layer of the Australian Government responsible for receiving all student applications to the various Aussie colleges & unis. They then pool the applications and on-send them to the relevant institution. For this service QTAC charges each student an "administrative fee" of AUD$47 (about US$43)... for lodging an *online* application. So sticking undergrads for a $30,000 bill is not enough, they have to squeeze the last drop of blood out of the poor 18-year-olds hoping to better their lives through education. Congrats to the lard-arse bureaucrats on this one, they each deserve to run the hazing gauntlet and be paddled to death.