FEDERAL BUDGET 2020 ◆
universities
Alexis Brown/Unsplash
$13,000 12,474
12,460 11,918
$12,000
11,117 $11,000
10,672
$10,000 2019-20
2020-21
2021-22
2022-23
2023-24
Fig 2: Real Public Funding per Commonwealth Supported Place (Real 2019-20 Values) ...continued from previous page The real public investment per Commonwealth Supported Place is shown in Figure 2. It shows that in real terms the level of public investment per CSP will fall from $12,474 to $11,672 a decline of $1,802 or 14.4% per student. This is in line with previous NTEU analysis.
Students pay more Analysis presented in the NTEU’s Senate inquiry submission also shows that as a result of the JRG, average student fees will increase from a round $8,800 to $9,530 an increase of some $730 or 8%. The inherent inequity of the JRG is revealed with the analysis showing the average fees for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students increasing by 15% and women students experiencing an increase of 10%.
Universities get less The data presented above shows that an increase in average fees ($730) is not enough to offset the reduction in average public funding per student ($1,800). Taken together this means that universities on average suffer a loss to resourcing of more than $1,000 or approx. 6% per CSP. This loss of real funding per student means universities will have fewer resources to educate student which will ultimately be borne by student and staff. For students there are likely to be fewer or larger face-to-face classes and less comprehensive student support. It will also mean even heavier workloads for already overstretched staff and even greatly reliance on casual and short-term contract workers.
Universities educate more students The Government’s announcement in December 2017 to freeze the level of public funding each university was entitled to receive to educate government supported students was always unsustainable. From the Government’s perspective it meant that universities were not being funded to accommodate the imminent surge in school-leavers making their way to university as a result of the so-called Costello baby-bonus boom. A failure to address this temporary spike in the young adult population would result in many qualified students missing out on a university place. Escalating levels of unmet demand would be politically unpalatable. Therefore, one of the primary objectives of the JRG is to increase the number of CSPs universities offer, without spending an extra cent. The original Government rhetoric around the JRG promised 39,000 new places by 2023 and 100,000 new places by 2030 . The question is how will this be achieved without any additional public investment? In an answer to a question on notice from Senator Mehreen Faruqi (Greens) about the composition of the original 15,000 new growth places in 2021, the Department of Education Science and Employment provided the following breakdown: • 4,000 new allocated growth places. • 1,000 designated national priority and Indigenous student places.
• 7,000 from increased flexibility and the introduction of new funding envelope. Only one-in-three (5,000) of the additional 15,000 places are newly funded growth or national priority places. The other 10,000 come from changes to the funding arrangements. The additional 3,000 places delivered as result of indexation are in fact places that otherwise would have been lost due to declining real funding levels. Almost half (7,000) of the new places are a result of what is referred to as increased flexibility within the funding envelope. This is bureaucratic gobbledegook for assuming that if universities want to maintain their maximum grant allocations for CSPs, they will have no option but to increase CSP enrolments. This is a direct result of reducing the level of public funding per CSP (Figure 2). In other words, based on the data provided by the Government, only one third of the expected rise in CSP enrolments come from additional newly funded places. Two out of three places are those rescued from removing indexation and those generated by cutting public investment per student. ◆
• 3,000 additional places delivered as a result of CPI indexation.
ADVOCATE VOL. 27 NO. 3 ◆ NOV 2020
27
