There's a fair bit of change coming with the VET Fee-help loans. To participate in the 'new' loan scheme VET providers (RTOs) will have to meet four core criteria, including
(1) quality and repute
(2) funding courses that generate jobs
(3) practical caps on student numbers and
(4) costs for each student place to be set according to delivery expenses.
The devil's in the detail, of course, but sounds good in theory. If an RTO wants to charge twice the going rate, they'll have to demonstrate why they're twice as good, if they want to keep their access to government funding. And all will need to demonstrate that the chances of students getting jobs at the end are good.
And yes, it's not necessarily easy for mum and dad training organisations to become RTOs and access Vet fee-help. Funny how nobody wants government funding to be easy to get, unless they're the ones getting it!
There's literally hundreds of small RTOs across the country that manage it, though. The biggie is proving financial viability. If an RTO goes bust, the government picks up the tab i.e. tax dollars get used to cover the failings of the provider. Not something you'd want to be doing too often. Bigger players generally have access to bigger resources, so they're lower risk.