The Australian Historical Association expresses its dismay and fierce disapproval to the significant increase in costs for undertaking humanities undergraduate subjects announced today by the Minister for Education, Dan Tehan. This decision is severely short-sighted and reveals a lack of understanding of the vital importance of humanities training for the employees of tomorrow. It is unnecessarily punitive and displays a remarkably narrow view of the very purpose of a tertiary education that promotes critical inquiry and critical thinking, creativity, ethics and communication. The recent crises of the bushfires and the pandemic amply demonstrates that human centred decision making of the sort that training in the humanities promotes is more vital than ever. We urge the Minister to rethink this funding model which will place the humanities in a perilous and vulnerable state now and into the future.