policy & reform campusreview. com. au
Opinion: Proper funding serves all
Australia’ s greatest resource is its people. In 2008, the findings of the Bradley Review gave us a strong blueprint for making the most of that resource.
In addition to recommending a 10 per cent increase in base funding to universities, the Bradley Review also set targets for higher education participation for students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds and recommended reform of student income support and additional aid for regional universities. These recommendations acknowledged the importance of tertiary education both for the lives of Australians who pursue it and for the prosperity of our economy.
Seven years on from the Bradley Review, our higher education sector is in transition. Whilst reform is necessary, any changes must keep at the forefront the absolute necessity of a well-funded, equitable higher education system for the economic and social future of our nation.
The education minister, Christopher Pyne, did not make his attempts to reform the sector and deregulate student fees without consultation in a vacuum. Rather, they represent the most recent attack to universities and students.
Further, Pyne’ s desperate changes to the reform bill, at the last hour, gave us an insight into what the plans had been all along: to remove the limits on fee hikes. The bill, even without its controversial funding cuts, would have set off a race to the bottom in university quality that would only further disenfranchise disadvantaged and regional students.
Fee deregulation would allow universities
Students and society benefit from ensuring that all students have access to the best in higher education.
By Rose Steele and Harry Rolf
around the country to set their fees according to the profit margins they want to produce. Worse still, elite universities would have the freedom to price out an entire cohort of students, effectively creating an exclusive two-tiered system in which disadvantaged students would not be able to access world-class higher education.
The defeat of the bill for a second time has proven that the Australian people will not stand for this Americanisation of our higher education system, but with Pyne vowing to re-introduce the legislation yet again, we must remain focused on achieving genuine equitable reform.
Tertiary-educated students make up the brains trust of our society. The increasingly dynamic global economy is putting pressure on our domestic market to build on innovation and technologies outside the blue-collar sector, and we need a highly educated workforce to meet these challenges.
With the collapse of the automotive industry, the uncertainty surrounding the shipbuilding industry and the decline in our mining industries, it could be argued the federal government is not doing enough to support innovation in this country. So we need to fight even harder for investment into our knowledge economy.
As well as supporting higher education, this means providing stable and adequate public funding for the research that will assist in driving future innovation. The notion that research and higher education funding will come at the expense of other services such as health and welfare ignores the fact that all of those are equally necessary to ensure our nation’ s future prosperity.
By promoting investment in higher education, the government will show it’ s ready to take our students to the next level – ready to take their education seriously and to ensure that upon graduation, there will be secure innovative industries that are prepared to take them into long-term employment.
Ultimately, this is what it’ s all about: ensuring higher education serves as a pathway for students to have access to better opportunities, and for Australia to realise its potential as a global leader in innovation. Pyne needs to engage students, industry bodies, key industry stakeholders and the broader community.
Students are rightfully concerned. Not only would fee deregulation create a barrier to their access to courses or burden them with debt for much of their working lives, but also it would make it hard to ensure local industries are competitive and sustainable into students’ futures.
The Intergenerational Report released in March further emphasises this point. The report itself makes it clear that, with deregulation, HECS-HELP debt is projected to increase as a share of GDP due to higher average debts and, potentially, a lack of suitable work opportunities for graduates.
With this insight, it’ s clear that further consultation and new alternatives are necessary for the sector.
Students are finding it hard to understand how the current higher education agenda can be so far removed from where we were headed with the Bradley Review.
The Australia Needs a Brighter Future campaign is a coalition of student bodies across Australia, fighting against fee deregulation and exploring collaborative alternatives for higher education.
As a coalition of student associations, we want to lead a national conversation about these fundamental issues. Not just for the interest of higher education students, but also for the future of our economy.
Ongoing instability in higher education and research funding would represent a poor public policy outcome. Given the recognition by all political parties of the importance of a strong, vibrant and growing system in Australia, it’ s a wonder students need to lead this conversation at all. n
Rose Steele is president of the National Union of Students.
Harry Rolf is national president of the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations.
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