Hey, it's just a little extra...

[Trolldor]

Uni fee rise is still on review's agenda
Dan Harrison
October 28, 2010

The woman who is leading a review of university funding has not ruled out asking students to pay more for their education.

Jane Lomax-Smith, a former South Australian education minister and the mayor of Adelaide, was appointed by the federal Minister for Tertiary Education, Chris Evans, this week to lead the review, which is due to report in October next year.

The review is beginning as the government comes under pressure from some universities to either dramatically increase government funding or allow institutions to charge higher fees, in part to offset shrinking international student revenue.
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According to its terms of reference, the review will identify international benchmarks for course quality and examine the cost of teaching different disciplines at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and recommend how much government funding is needed to ensure funding levels are ''internationally competitive and appropriate''.

It will also consider whether student contributions ''reflect a fair contribution to the cost of delivering high-quality courses'', and whether these contributions adequately reflect the ''private return'' of education.

The terms of reference stress that options ''should be consistent with the government's agenda to ensure that fees should not be a barrier to participation in higher education''.

Dr Lomax-Smith said the review team would perform its task in full knowledge of Labor's commitment not to reintroduce full-fee places. But she refused to be drawn on whether she was open to smaller increases in student charges. ''I don't think that it's fruitful to describe the results of a review before it's begun.''

She also declined to say whether she supported a recommendation from the 2008 review chaired by a former University of South Australia vice-chancellor, Denise Bradley, for a 10 per cent increase in base funding.

Michael Gallagher, the executive director of the Group of Eight research-intensive universities, which include Melbourne, Monash, Sydney and UNSW, said the funding model, in which all student places in the same field were funded at the same rate and student charges were set by government, was ''past its use-by date''.

Accomodation is $9,000
One class can equate to around $800 if it's cheap. Four classes means $3200, that's $12,200 dollars a year for a university student... and they want to make us pay more.

[eXcommunicate]

Well, it's pretty simple, isn't it? Either tuition has to rise or government subsidies need to increase. If you are for increased government subsidies, then please detail where the money should come from. Which other programs should be cut?

[Trolldor]

The several billion in tax cuts, subsidies and benefits they provide to religious institutions?

[eXcommunicate]

Well, that's not going to happen, so find a viable alternative.

[Trolldor]

Yes, it is going to happen.

See? I can make absolutist, dismissive statements too.

[Azathoth]

Short sighted tossers. By linking student fees to the cost of teaching a subject they are going to have serious problems filling the science degrees. I hope you need sociologists out there

[Feck]

Nobody would argue that primary and secondary education is a luxury and that education is a right so where do they get off cutting funding to higher and further education ?

Is it not in a countries interests to have a well educated population ? no matter what graduate loan arrangements are put in place we have seen in the UK that increases in the costs of University education put off people from poor backgrounds going to University .This means Universities are not even getting the best and the brightest .

In the UK they are now talking about "top" Universities being able to charge more ! Therefore Smaller Universities and less popular courses may just disappear .

[Kristie]

Yes, it is going to happen.

See? I can make absolutist, dismissive statements too.

It won't happen for a very long time, at lease in the US.

[Trolldor]

Considering the New South Wales Government recently made almost one billion dollars in revenue, some 8-9 times the forecast of the year and 2 times that of the forecast for the next four to six years, I'm not too concerned about them finding the money to subsidise university students. In fact, I think it would be entirely possible to subsidise university students if each state, using their own revenue and supported with assistence from the federal level, subsidised the universities in that state it could easily be done.