Review of Australian Higher Education The Bradley Review

2. A long list of problems
Though Australian higher education has a proud
history, its policy framework is in a state of
disrepair. It fails basic tests of effectiveness
and fairness.
The system of distributing student places to
universities leaves the graduate labour market
desperately short of health professionals, while
graduates from other disciplines cannot find
professional work. The Government offers
subsidised and price-controlled places in elite
degrees that are near-sure pathways to high
earnings, while students classified as from low
socioeconomic backgrounds attend for-profit
feeder colleges at twice the fees, in the hope that
they can articulate into a university course. We use
international student fees to finance the education
of Australian undergraduates, with no mechanism
for making up the difference should Australia
lose international market share. Innovation and
diversity is discouraged, by only funding tuition at
a limited number of institutions, capping fees, and
restricting competition.
Students seeking income support for their study
face a confusing array of different government
programs, sometimes requiring complex choices
between them. Students from high-income
families can live with their parents on full Youth
Allowance after satisfying an easy ‘independence’
test, while students who must move to study
receive nothing unless they take a gap year to
establish their independence. Students who do
receive Youth Allowance lose their benefits at
50 cents in the dollar well before earned income
reaches the poverty line.
Though the income-contingent student loan
program is a successful Australian innovation, it
too has anomalies. It charges undergraduates but
not postgraduates for borrowing money, and lets
graduates who work overseas delay repayment,
while those who stay in Australia repay their debt.
The research funding system makes academia an
unattractive career: postgraduate scholarships at
much lower rates than our most able graduates
can earn elsewhere, with uncertain fellowships
and research contracts on completion of their
degrees. Only one in five Australian Research
Council grant applications is funded, and then
at much less than the project cost. Research
infrastructure has been run down over many
years, threatening the base on which all
research depends.
Trying to solve problems without systemic
reform will no longer work. The ad hoc reforms
of recent years have created new inconsistencies
and distortions rather than resolved structural
problems. Short-term funding boosts give
temporary relief before costs again start running
ahead of revenues. We cannot assume that
international student fees will indefinitely sustain
Australian universities. The time has come to
rethink higher education policy from first principles,
and start again with coherent system design based
on the best evidence available.
University of Melbourne Bradley Review Submission