Higher student fees will not deliver a quality higher education system
30 August 2000
The principles for policy reform put forward by the `Group of Eight’ universities - deregulated fees, a voucher-based funding model and increased university autonomy – will not deliver a quality higher education system.
`Student fees are not the goose that lays the golden egg,’ said NTEU President Dr Carolyn Allport. `The market for full-fee undergraduate places in Australia is relatively small, and will remain so; unless Government further cuts the number of fully-subsidised places. In New Zealand, where fees have been deregulated for some time, evidence is emerging of a fall in participation among disadvantaged groups and the middle class as fees rise. Student loans scheme, which in a deregulated environment inevitably attract a real interest rate, do not provide adequate support.
`Deregulation of fees would not deliver the significant investment of funds that our universities need, but it would open the door to significant social and educational inequalities.’
Dr Allport said that the policy paper represented a lost opportunity, insofar as it did not make an effective case for improving the funding and operations of Australia’s higher education sector.
`The evidence for building public investment is there,’ said Dr Carolyn Allport. `However, apart from recommending a much-needed increase in basic research funding, the Group of Eight has not made a case for increasing public funding. Instead, they have reiterated the failed policy prescriptions of the Federal Government.
`What the higher education sector really needs is public investment that will add value to our existing infrastructure and valuable human resources, as the Chief Scientist stated in his recent Discussion Paper,’ she concluded.