NEWS campusreview . com . au
Students admitted with low ATARs are likely to be less successful .
Lowering the bar
Universities set low entry requirements to take subpar students .
By Natasha Bita
Struggling students who left school at the bottom of the class are being accepted into prestigious university degrees including engineering , architecture and psychology .
Universities made offers to students with Australian Tertiary Admission Rank ( ATAR ) scores below 50 – the bottom 10 per cent of high school leavers – for 221 different bachelor degrees this year , placing them at higher risk of failure and financial risk .
Federation University Australia , the University of Tasmania , and La Trobe University both accepted students with an ATAR in the 30s – the bottom two per cent of school leavers .
Aspiring teachers can access seven different education degrees with ATAR scores of 50 and below , sparking protests from the teachers ’ union .
Australian Education Union president Correna Haythorpe warned that students with an ATAR lower than the average of 70 were likely to fail a teaching degree .
“ Low university-entry scores for teaching degrees is a growing concern ,” she said .
“ Evidence suggests that students admitted with low ATARs are likely to be less successful at university and are less likely to complete their course .
“ The bar must be raised by setting minimum entry requirements and making teaching a two-year postgraduate degree .”
A Federation University spokeswoman blamed an “ administrative error ” for admitting a student with an ATAR of 37 to a teaching degree this year .
“ We have investigated this matter with the Victorian Teaching Institute , and we are both satisfied that the student is doing well and should be allowed to complete the course ,” she said .
Alarmingly low academic requirements are revealed in ATAR cut-off scores for university admissions this year , published on the federal government ’ s Course Seeker website using official data from universities and tertiary admission centres .
Starting this year , students who fail to pass at least half their subjects will lose taxpayer subsidies and be forced to pay the full cost of their degree , switch to an easier course or drop out of university .
The federal Education Department said it did not yet know how many students were failing , and losing taxpayer funding , as a result of the former Coalition government ’ s Job-Ready Graduates legislation that will be reviewed by the new Labor government later this year .
If students fail a course and are kicked out , they will still have to repay the student loans they borrowed through the Higher Education Loan Program ( HELP ), possibly leaving them with a lifelong debt .
Federal Education Department data shows that more than 13,000 students with below-50 ATAR scores applied for university last year , with 55 per cent accepted .
Another 30,000 students applied with ATARs between 50 and 70 , with threequarters accepted , while nearly all the 29,000 applicants with an ATAR above 90 enrolled in a degree .
Of the students with low ATAR scores , 11 per cent were from poorer backgrounds while only 2 per cent were from wealthy families .
Among the highest achievers , 38 per cent were wealthy and 17 per cent were from poorer families .
Higher education policy expert Andrew Norton , professor in the practice of higher education policy at the Centre for Social Research and Methods at the Australian National University , warned that students admitted with low academic results were the most likely to drop out of university .
He said half the students with an ATAR below 50 would fail to complete their course .
“ Often they are equity students admitted under special arrangements ,” he said .
“ I am concerned that some students will be expose to financial risk because they have a high chance of not completing their degree .”
The Course Seeker data shows that the University of Tasmania admitted business graduates with an ATAR of 30 this year , while RMIT University set a low threshold of 48.4 for its Bachelor of Psychology .
While the University of NSW accepted only students with an ATAR over 85 for its civil engineering degree , La Trobe University lowered its cut-off to 50 .
For an accounting and finance degree , the Australian Catholic University set a cutoff barely below 50 , while the University of Tasmania admitted architecture students with an ATAR of just 44 . ■
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