Improved funding will provide better opportunities for students.
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An independent authority should control the tertiary funding system in Australia in order to best implement policy objectives.
What are threats facing America’s public universities?
Matthew Ephraim
A provocative new documentary, ‘Starving the Beast,’ blames the condition of higher ed on right-wing policies. A scholar argues that the film ignores a long history that has led to current crisis.
University students are fed up that their calls for free education are being ignored.
Nic Bothma/EPA
South Africa’s higher education minister has dealt with fee increments for 2017 but sidestepped students’ fundamental issue: an ongoing call to make higher education free for all.
Between 2008 and 2015, the number of disadvantaged students enrolled at Australian institutions increased by 50.2%.
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While research shows HEPPP has helped to increase numbers of disadvantaged students going to university, more specific evidence is still needed.
Students around the world are taking a view on their universities’ colonial past.
John Stillwell/PA Wire
Higher education enables people to express a wide range of perspectives that can come together and be challenged.
Podcasts are emerging as an arguably easy-to-access, affordable mode of creating new spaces for discussion and debate.
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The podcast has emerged as a promising medium for facilitating ongoing debate about issues that need more time than mainstream, profit-oriented media or the changing tides of hashtags might allow.
Is the benefit of a university education overstated?
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Young people today will need to be more flexible and more entrepreneurial than in the past. Universities can help by designing courses that will have value in a rapidly changing economy.
A year on from South Africa’s #feesmustfall protests, funding remains a hot issue.
Kim Ludbrook/EPA
Academia is being asked to do less for more, and universities are at financial breaking point. This has implications for all South Africans.
Hungry children stretch out their hands at a Somalian refugee camp in 2011.
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Talking about food is a productive way to understand a complex world. The dinner table is a place where the shame of poverty is most acutely experienced.
Should universities be allowed to deregulate fees for some courses?
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If the flagship policy does not end up driving choice or quality, it is hard to see it gaining support.
Students have been emboldened and won’t give up their demand for free education.
Nic Bothma/EPA
South African students’ demands for free university education are not going away. Nor are the country’s economic realities.
Ranking organisations call the shots about which universities are ‘best’.
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It is arrogant and hypocritical for ranking institutions to declare that they’re building Africa’s legacy or its global partnerships on the continent’s behalf.
Australian universities should explore ways of working with Indian institutions.
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Australia will face stiff competition from other countries, such as the US and UK, so it must have a clear strategy for how to deepen its engagement with India’s higher education sector.
Both sides of politics agree that student funding rates need reviewing.
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At best, there will be no new public money, just shuffling funds between programs. At worst, higher education will help reduce the budget deficit.
Capping the number of students at current levels would reduce future participation in tertiary education.
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One option could be to cut per-student funding and instead raise the student contribution from an average of about 40% to 50%, by raising HECS caps.
There has been an increase in research grants going to high-profile applicants.
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Demand for research grants has far exceeded supply, with success rates for grant applications falling to record lows.
Three more years for Malcolm Turnbull and the Coalition.
AAP/David Moir
July 10, 2016
Jeff Borland , The University of Melbourne ; Ben Spies-Butcher , Macquarie University ; Deborah Ralston , Monash University ; Diana Perche , Macquarie University ; Emmaline Bexley , The University of Melbourne ; Glenn C Savage , The University of Melbourne ; Helen Dickinson , The University of Melbourne ; Jago Dodson , RMIT University ; Jim Gillespie , University of Sydney ; Joanna Mendelssohn , UNSW Sydney ; John Wanna , Australian National University ; Mary Anne Kenny , Murdoch University ; Merlin Crossley , UNSW Sydney ; Nicole Gurran , University of Sydney ; Robyn Eckersley , The University of Melbourne ; Susan Irvine , Queensland University of Technology , and Thas Ampalavanapillai Nirmalathas , The University of Melbourne
What’s in store for key policy areas, from health to education to infrastructure to asylum seekers, under a returned Coalition government?
After days of waiting, Malcolm Turnbull will form a government.
AAP/Lukas Coch
What did the Coalition promise during the campaign in 11 key policy areas, from health to infrastructure to jobs?
University education has paid a rate of return of around 15%.
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Not only does higher education build the economy’s skills and knowledge, but that it pays for itself and much else many times over.
Policy differences will play a central role in deciding the outcome of the 2016 election.
AAP/Joe Castro
Before Australians go to vote on Saturday, The Conversation’s editors have assembled a guide to 11 key policy areas that could swing the vote.