Hey Silvie,
JCU is James Cook Uni - they have campuses in Townsville and Cairns, so for me, that's close to family. They offer both Masters as well as PhD levels, available online, which again is another plus for me. I'm still waiting to hear from them, but I think they've pretty much shut down for the year.
For me, it wasn't really a case of getting a foot in the door for work as a professional astronomer, but more so that I could undergo a structured course, with someone to assess how much I actually knew, and how much i was talking out my.... er "hot air bag"
I've also got dreams of NASA, so hopefully a degree like that would help me down the track
As for the cost, I'm not sure who told you that? The course doesn't fall under HECS, but it does fall under some other government scheme that is almost identical. In the end, yes, you do have to pay for it yourself, but then again, you have to pay for your own bachelor degree as well. I liked the payment/coursework idea for the Swinburne course, in that you could spread it out over as much as 6 years or as little as 1.5 (the JCU course is a fixed 3 years), but in the end, they cost about the same.
Cheers,
Brad