policy & reform
Everyone wants to know how the Budget proposals will be settled but the political climate makes the outcome hard to predict. By Flynn Murphy
He was right at the age of entitlement. There was 22-year-old arts / law student Joe Hockey, fronting the press and urging other young protesters to join him in the fight for free education.
The news footage, light relief unearthed in the wake of a tough federal Budget, was seized upon by critics of the Coalition’ s education reforms as evidence of hypocrisy.
But more has changed since 1987 than the federal treasurer’ s views on education policy. Hockey’ s first Budget promises a monumental shake-up for tertiary education, one that, both supporters and detractors have suggested, will make it more like the system in the US. At its core: extending Commonwealth funding to students enrolled at private providers and TAFEs; deregulating undergraduate fees by removing caps on what universities can charge; and shifting more of the burden onto the shoulders of students through changes to HELP.
In the wake of the Coalition’ s budget, however, much of the focus has been on the fact fees are likely to rise to make up for the shortfall caused by reductions in Commonwealth funding. How much they will rise depends on which modelling you believe.
Medical science graduates could see their fees jump to $ 120,000, according to the architect of HECS, education economist professor Bruce Chapman, who has serious concerns about what the education budget means for those experiencing poverty and disadvantage.
At the same time, interest on all student loans will be pegged to a higher index( the 10-year government bond rate, instead of the lower Consumer Price Index). The government hopes this will raise $ 3.2 billion over the forward estimates from the 1,680,000 Australians sitting on a HECS-HELP debt.
But the Coalition has framed its reforms around its electoral motif of“ opportunity”. Education minister Christopher Pyne is selling his education package as a way to expand access to the tertiary system, keep higher education“ sustainable”, and foster competition domestically and abroad.
Dr Hannah Forsyth, an educational historian from the Australian Catholic University, thinks the Coalition is being blinded by ideology.
“ The real problem with Pyne’ s plan, as it stands, is not extending Commonwealth supported places to private institutions, but withdrawing funding from the public sector in the belief that will drive down prices and drive quality,” she says.
Forsyth says the prestige of the sandstone universities will quash efforts to drive competition and leave students forced to pay massive shortfalls. And she thinks it will further cement inequality into the structure of the tertiary system.
“ There’ s no way the private institutions are going to compete with the universities,” Forsyth says.“ It’ s not about redirecting funding to private institutions – it’ s about sequestering low-SES people away from them.
“ The Group of Eight is going to sit on top of this pile with no competition, and they can charge whatever they like.”
Forsyth is not the only one concerned about deregulation. There has been intense criticism from many stakeholders in the tertiary sector, and also from the public.
The Coalition’ s plan draws heavily from last year’ s Kemp-Norton review. The government took up its recommendations about private institutions but has declined to adopt its recommendation for uptake at the postgraduate level.
But the Kemp-Norton review also endorsed the role of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, established in 2012, which it says was a“ guard against sub-standard courses and institutions in an expanding higher education system” and vital to a demand-driven system. So the fact that TEQSA will have its funding reduced by more than $ 30 million over the forward estimates, and potentially have some regulatory powers stripped, has some worried about quality decline.
Emeritus professor Deryck Schreuder is a visiting professor in the faculty of education and social work at the University of Sydney and an adjunct professor at the Humanities Research Centre. He was previously vice-chancellor of the University of Western Sydney and sat on the board of the Australian Universities Quality Agency, a precursor to TEQSA.
“ We run a big international system and, globally, people want to know it’ s quality assured,” Schreuder says.“ We’ re having more and more private providers, and there are some very good ones, but it’ s important that the community is assured there are real teeth in accreditation and review.”
He supports the deregulation push in principle, saying,“ I’ ve long thought we have far too regulated a system, too much bureaucracy … We should be giving greater flexibility to universities.”
But he argues that delivering this kind of widespread reform in a Budget that simultaneously claws money out of the tertiary system is a“ squandered opportunity”, and will derail the debate.
“ It’ s a cost-cutting approach,” Schreuder explains.“ Many of us are seriously worried that this is a step towards marginalising the sector, when it is essential to a future knowledge economy. The system’ s running on fairly lean fuel anyway, but [ the government ] has these huge aspirations … while continuing to cut the money.
“ You could take issues such as deregulation and diversification and build those into the system. But I think it’ s really important to sustain the budget levels. We’ re going to be diverted by this huge impost of money being taken out and universities making up losses.
“ That’ s my sense of disappointment. Here’ s another opportunity where we could have developed a much more nuanced education policy.”
The Coalition’ s reform agenda has been inextricably enmeshed in a broader Budget of cuts. Universities stand to lose $ 1.1 billion over the forward estimates if the Budget and its supporting bills are passed.
Even vice-chancellors in the Go8 – which generally supports deregulation – increasingly express concerns, whilst their students have taken to the streets in scenes around Australia.
The faculty of arts and social sciences at the University of Sydney calculates that it will face a shortfall of more than $ 10 million a year unless it increases fees or more students are enrolled. University of Queensland vice-chancellor Peter Høj has singled out changes to loan repayments, which he says will make“ the cuts to the government funding for students sting more than we had anticipated”.
Meanwhile, vice-chancellor Jane den Hollander of non-Go8 Deakin University has accused the government of misunderstanding the cycle of higher education, whilst putting a freeze on Deakin’ s fees until 2016( amidst an advertising blitz complete with the promoted Twitter hashtag # FeeFreeze).
The university sector will, indeed, be hit by a funding cut double-whammy.
From January 1, 2016, the Higher Education Grants Index will be scrapped. Introduced in 2012, the HEGI is the means by which grants and regulated student contributions are indexed in line with factors such as wages growth. Now those amounts will instead be indexed to the Consumer Price Index, which will probably diminish real growth in government spending. According to the Budget Papers, this measure will save the commonwealth more than $ 200 million over three years, starting with the 2015 – 16 Budget.
Add( or subtract) the Coalition promise to follow through on Labor’ s widely unpopular �
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