April 22, 2015
Higher Education Infrastructure Working Group (HEIWG): IRU Submission
The evidence from the PhillipsKPA report and the tenor of the IRU’s discussion with the Working Group confirms the considerable diversity across the sector be it in the state of capital infrastructure, degree of universities’ autonomy from the respective state government or current level of borrowing. For any university its position changes from year to year in response to infrastructure investment decisions and other financial decisions.
The IRU supports creation of a medium term strategic government approach to higher education infrastructure that addresses:
- Government’s capacity to invest in higher education infrastructure, other than high cost cross institutional research needs;
- setting realistic levels of State Government controls and reporting that supports effective, timely action by universities while meeting States’ needs to be aware of the actions of State instrumentalities;
- Government support for greater private sector and philanthropic investment, in response to proposals from the Working Group or others for how to raise investment from both sources.
Read more in the attached PDF.
