Federal election 2022
University leaders have urged the Albanese government to review the Coalition’s controversial changes to degree funding, which doubled student fees for some courses and halved them for others, with at least one vice-chancellor calling for a major overhaul of the system.
ANU vice-chancellor Brian Schmidt said “everything should be on the table” as he called for a long-term strategy for the sector and urged the new government to significantly step up research funding to ensure universities were not dependent on international student fees.
ANU vice-chancellor and Nobel laureate Brian Schmidt has joined other university leaders in calling for the new Labor government to review the Morrison government’s controversial funding reforms and increase investment in research. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
“We should be prepared to make major overhauls to the system,” Schmidt, a Nobel prize-winning physicist, said. “But ultimately, we have to try and increase investments in research. It is falling precipitously.”
He said the Morrison government’s contentious funding changes, called the Job Ready Graduate (JRG) reforms, were having a perverse effect in dissuading universities from enrolling students in high-cost areas such as sciences and engineering.
“It is keeping me from supplying key graduates in certain areas right now. I have an incentive to replace domestic students with international students because I get more money from them. I don’t think that is in the national interest,” Schmidt said.
Universities have increasingly relied on high-fee-paying international students to cross-subsidise research. Total investment in research and development as a percentage of GDP was 1.79 per cent in 2019-20, down from 2.1 per cent a decade ago and below the OECD average.
The JRG changes, legislated by the Morrison government in 2020 and now in the second year of operation, radically altered how the Commonwealth funds degrees and what proportion of the costs students are required to pay. Student fees for popular courses such as humanities and arts were increased 110 per cent while fees for “priority” skills courses such as teaching, nursing, science, and engineering were cut by between 20 and 60 per cent, as part of an attempt to drive students toward those courses of study.
Labor voted against the legislation in the last parliament but has made no commitment to unwind the changes in government. Education spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek has pledged to establish a university accord with academic leaders and businesses to address systemic challenges – including to funding, research investment and student debt – although no timetable has been set.
La Trobe University vice-chancellor John Dewar said key assumptions underpinning the JRG changes – for example, that students would be dissuaded from studying high-cost degrees – had proved inaccurate, and universities did not believe the reforms would deliver the promised 100,000 extra student places by 2030.
“It’s certainly something that we’ve had at the top of our asks of government, is to have another look at how that legislation is working,” said Dewar, who also chairs Universities Australia, the peak body that represents the country’s top 39 universities.
But with universities still adjusting to the seismic shakeup, he doubted there would be widespread appetite for another major overhaul of the funding system, suggesting instead elements could be “tidied up”.
“There are some aspects of Job Ready Graduates that in the light of experience will probably present themselves as keenly in need of reform,” Dewar said.
NSW vice-chancellors’ committee convenor Professor Barney Glover said there was “no compelling evidence” to support the idea that increasing student HELP debt influenced degree choice and echoed calls for sustainable long-term research funding.
“[The legislation] needs a review but we also need to understand post-pandemic global trends and whether JRG is fit for purpose,” Glover, vice-chancellor of Western Sydney University, said.
“Dependence on international student revenues to underpin national research capability is a sovereign risk issue.”
Schmidt said Australia needed to channel the approach of other nations which were ramping up investment in research and development, arguing the Commonwealth should increase funding by at least $1 billion a year to boost productivity growth and remain internationally competitive.
“The US and China definitely see it as absolutely as an existential issue for them and, at the same time, we are going in the other direction,” he said.
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