Inner Sydney universities must have missed the message from Jason Clare that 20% of students should come from the bottom SES quartile.
Half of the State’s ten public universities delivered for the Education Minister on their socio-economic mix last year – all of them outside Sydney and traditionally strong in extending educational opportunities, according to an NSW Auditor General analysis.
Charles Sturt U and Uni New England had close to 30% of students from low SES backgrounds. Southern Cross U followed with 25%, Uni Newcastle (22%) and Western Sydney U (20.7 %.)
Uni Wollongong, in the increasingly-affluent Illawarra, came close with 18%, but none of the Big Four came close – despite their being accessible from across Greater Sydney by public transport. Just 7.5% of local UTS students met Mr Clare’s quota, ahead of Uni NSW (7.4%), Uni Sydney (7.2%) and Macquarie U (6.7%).
Nationally, Mr Clare says, 17% of students, “are from the poorest 25% of families” and he told the Universities Australia conference in February that “the sort of county we need to become means it needs to change.” The Minister pointed to the government guarantee of a Commonwealth funded place for every regional/ low SES applicant a university will accept as how he will change it.
Question is, where will they want to study and which Sydney universities will want to attract them? At least without encouragement from ATEC.