Higher education policy development should involve learning from the Abbott government’s mistakes and other counties where university reform has been successfully achieved.
The opposition’s statement today rules out a number of the current government’s policies. Deregulation, as they’ve said before, but also plans to expand the demand-driven system.
Currently universities collaborate with one another and with other sectors in myriad ways, greater competition through deregulation could discourage such collaborations.
International students are more attracted to universities that charge more, so would price equal quality in the eyes of Aussie students if fees were uncapped?
Students rated their financial literacy quite low, which means many students who have managed to secure a place at university don’t believe they understand about debt.
The Group of Eight have now withdrawn their support for fee deregulation, despite it already having caused fissures in the higher education system. But what are they worried about? And what sort of conversation do they want to have now?
Education Minister Christopher Pyne claimed his plan to deregulate university fees was essential to boosting Australia’s place in the rankings. But no student fee rise will give us close to the level of funds of the top ranked unis.
Before the government tries a third time to secure support for university fee deregulation, it needs to learn from past mistakes in the tertiary education sector and come up with a plan.
The voting down of the higher education bill stems from the government’s failure to sell the reforms. Here is a six step guide to successfully making big changes to higher education.
While the attempted higher education reforms have been a fiasco, the public has become alerted to the importance of universities and fair access to higher education.
The Senate has defeated the government’s plan to deregulate university fees 34 votes to 30, with Labor, the Greens and five of the other eight crossbenchers combining against it.
Education Minister Christopher Pyne has announced a last-ditch effort to try to save the government’s plan to deregulate university fees, which faces defeat in the Senate.