A range of reforms are required to ensure that needs based funding reaches the students and communities that need it most, according to an important new paper released by the 2050 Alliance today.
Numerous HE leaders have raised concerns about the effectiveness of needs-based funding, in particular the decision to funnel funding for regional disadvantage into much-needed funding to sustain campuses, rather than address the specific needs of students.
After setting the benchmark in modelling the damage wrought by continuing Job Ready Graduates funding, the Alliance is building on their policy depth, with a paper examining a range of opportunities to improve Needs Based Funding (NBF) rules and impact.
“Student disadvantage is more complex than simple definitions and postcodes,” 2050 Alliance Chair Professor George Williams said.
At present, equity students were dependent on inadequate measures – for example low SES students are determined by how their postcode was classified in the 2021 census, not on household income. A more sophisticated approach evaluating individual need and also considering first in family status was required to improve targeting, the paper said.
A 2018 report had identified the need for individual measures of socio economic status based on evidence of disadvantage, but had not been acted upon, the paper said.
“Equity categories are merely risk factors for disadvantage – they are based on student
membership in a category, not measurable individual disadvantage,” the report said.
Formalised in the Government’s latest ‘Opening the Doors’ legislation, NBF funding provides an ongoing commitment to additional funding for Low SES, First Nations and Regional students, but flexibility and staged implementation would be required to ensure universities could maintain support while transitioning from other programs, the paper said.
Other key insights include:
- The lowest 25% SES cut off for support is inadequate – and won’t enable the Accord’s attainment targets to be reached.
- The relationship between the NBF and existing funding for Indigenous students remains unclear and needs to be clarified
- First-in-family is an important indicator of disadvantage
- Funding for regional campuses should be re-evaluated to ensure an adequate level of base funding, reflecting the higher costs of regional delivery
Alliance CEO Paul Harris said change was required if the nation was to achieve the targets of inclusion and growth set out in the Accord.
“We know that NBF alone will not get us to the 2050 targets and it must be combined with other reforms recommended by the Universities Accord, including for fairer student fees and increased financial support for students struggling with cost-of-living pressures,” Mr Harris said.