The Higher Education reforms: Recovering the lost Government subsidy from students

The Department has released the proposed clusters and funding rates from 2016, which simplify the clusters into five groups but also achieve a 20% reduction overall in funding. The proposed clusters are based on a 0.6:2:3:4:6 relative distribution across disciplines…

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TEQSA Issues – Education and Employment Legislation Committee

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Commission of Audit: initial comment

The Commission of Audit produced no surprises in its recommendations for higher education and research. Indeed it was almost restrained. The Commission estimates that higher education is the 11th largest Government program, after the significant increases of recent years, but…

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Executive Director Comment: Higher Education Reform Agenda

HE reforms: the state of play The Governments suite of changes to higher education have generated more attention than any since John Dawkins began his creation of a university driven higher education system compiled from the previous universities and CAEs.…

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A case for extending funding to all higher education providers

It is not instinctive to argue for extra competition, so it is no surprise that universities are moderate in their response to the proposal to extend standard Commonwealth funding to other higher education providers. In recommending the demand driven system…

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Capping $$ – what does this really mean

A system of capped funding? What does it mean to change university funding to a capped funding amount which universities can use as they will? Can it both give Government certainty of expenditure and protect universities from micro managing of their operations?…

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No scandal in ATAR’s growing irrelevance

The growing irrelevance of the ATAR in a demand funded system is driving debate about the use of ATARs to measure suitability for higher education. There is nothing like loss of purpose to focus attention at superficial charms.

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Measuring socio-economic status: IRU response

The IRU supports the proposals set down in Moving to an Enhanced Indicator of Higher Education Students’ Socio-economic Status for a more precise locational SES measure using geographical data at the SA1 level (based on the SEIFA IEO). The final…

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