Australian unis have a two-track system. One type of student misses out
Western Sydney University vice chancellor George Williams told The Australian Financial Review's higher education summit on Tuesday that there was a two-track system in Australia for universities and domestic students were being priced out.
'There are those students who can afford to study at university, and there are a large number of students who cannot, and even if they go to university, they cannot afford to stay the length of their degree,' he said.
He said the Job-ready Graduates program introduced during the Morrison government was 'pricing students out of university'. The program resulted in the cost of an arts degree surging to $50,000 and Labor has kept the controversial program since it came to office.
'[The] funding for domestic students has declined by $2 billion in real terms since 2020 so that's a pretty clear signal about where the priorities of the system are, particularly on the latter, and it's not domestic students,' Williams said.
'And that leads us into that dynamic where, if you want to deal with decreasing government funding, it's about international students, and to get that, it's about research rankings. And that's the virtuous circle: big universities, research rankings. International students, back into research, back into rankings.
'And it's significant that domestic students don't get a look in.'
In the face of a reduction in international students, numerous Australian universities are facing perilous financial situations and are chasing hundreds of millions of dollars in savings. UTS, Macquarie, Wollongong and Charles Sturt universities have all announced plans in the past 12 months to slash jobs. Meanwhile, other universities that rank highly in international league tables, such as Sydney University and the University of NSW, have posted large surpluses.
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Sydney Morning Herald
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- Sydney Morning Herald
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11 minutes ago
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Sky News AU
11 minutes ago
- Sky News AU
Australia ‘changing under our feet' with Labor's weaknesses
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