Some 2.5 years after the Accord Final report proposed the idea, legislation to establish Managed Growth and Needs-Based funding for Australian Higher Education institutions was passed in the lower house of Parliament yesterday.
The Bill will now go to a Senate Committee hearing with a cast of sector luminaries getting their say on Monday, including Universities Australia’s Luke Sheehy, UTas VC Rufus Black, Alliance 2050’s Paul Harris, RUN’s Alec Webb, and Western Sydney VC George Williams.
Jason Clare’s Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) legislation seeks to lock in the new funding system under the watchful eyes of the new regulator, the Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC), in a bid to change the face of enrolments in the nation’s universities.
The legislation puts an extra $3.6b on the table to enrol students from under-represented backgrounds, while also controlling domestic enrolments by the usual suspects.
While passage of the Bill through the House of Representatives will be a moment for celebration in the Office of Mr Clare, significant questions remain over what the Bill will actually do.
After all, it is one thing to open a door, but how many will choose to step through it and at what price is still unknown.
The Build It and They Will Come mantra that underpins the Bill is not accompanied by any publicly-available market research data on barriers to entry, drivers of demand, higher per student acquisition costs for under-represented cohorts, or preferred modes of instruction.
Will the extra places allowed via Mr Clare’s open door be sufficient to neutralise the decline in demand as a result of his continued reliance on Job Ready Graduates fees? Particularly given the impact of JRG on underrepresented cohorts?
Mr Clare maintains that the funding mechanism and new dollars are a game changer, “like Gonski for universities.”
The Needs-Based package provides more money per low SES, Indigenous and disabled student, but funding for rural and regional students is used as a long-overdue crumb for regional institutions, which have been struggling from a host of challenges including higher delivery costs, fewer economies of scale, brand recognition challenges, competition from larger metro institutions and relatively fewer international enrolments – just to name a few.
While the case for more funding for regional campuses is undeniable, the choice to allocate regional funding to campuses rather than students with this package is far less clear cut. Yes, it will start to address the historic funding neglect of regional campuses. But the assumption that regional students will abandon the tractor and rush off to their local university just because the buildings are no longer falling down appears yet to be proven.
The sector only gets the $3.6 billion if the students enrol, but Mr Clare is bullish, either not told or not concerned about the uncertainties of demand-side dynamics.
“Talent is everywhere. It’s opportunity that’s not,” he says in his Media Release.
“These reforms will mean more young people from poor families and from the regions and the bush get a crack at university.”