Larger universities are not doing their share when it comes to enrolling underserved cohorts of students, according to a report by ACSES looking at correlations between university size and access.
While the Accord clearly targeted students who were Indigenous, rural, from a Low SES area, and/or with a disability as key underserved groups in Australia’s higher education system, a report by the Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success (vACSES) has found that equity participation drops off sharply when enrolments grow above 23,000.
James Cook University leads the sector with around 90% of its students coming from underrepresented groups, followed closely by Central Queensland U and the University of Tasmania. Students of larger urban universities such as UTS, Macquarie, UNSW, U Syd, Melbourne and Monash are far less likely to be from an underrepresented cohort, with just 20-30% of enrolments fitting this category.
Group of 8 universities tend to be well below average in accepting enrolments outside the old school tie network, particularly lagging in students with disability, First Nations and regional/remote, but doing relatively well with students from a Non-English Speaking Background.
Meanwhile, the Regional Universities Network and the 2050 Alliance members doing most of the heavy lifting accepting and supporting proportionately higher numbers of under-represented students.
This raises some interesting questions. While noting the ACSES centre is based at Curtin, the finding that smaller unis tend to perform better in accepting people who don’t fit the norm could be a consideration in deciding whether to create a megauniversity through mergers of institutions in WA.
It will be also interesting to monitor change as needs-based funding is implemented – providing funding to regional campuses and not affecting block funding for students with disability, while creating an uncapped high-demand market for Indigenous enrolments.