FUNDING
POLICY & LOBBYING
Shocker Budget!
Higher ed set for an even more precarious future
The 2021-22 Budget is a major disappointment, but not only because the outlook is short term and new funding primarily targeted at for profit, private providers.
Terri MacDonald Director, Policy & Research
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With over 17,000 job losses and a $1.8 billion revenue fall, higher education was one of the worst hit sectors in the Australian economy by the pandemic. The sector had optimistically hoped that the Government would finally acknowledge the crisis and at least partly offer emergency assistance. But the 2021-22 Budget is a major disappointment. NTEU’s Budget submission called for public funding to be increased to 1% of GDP (in line with the OECD average) which would boost government funding of the sector and allow the abolishment of tuition fees for domestic student (alleviating the problem of compounding unpaid HELP debt) as well as improving research funding. We also put forward a proposal for regulatory reform which would mean that universities could work to individualised goals and objectives that include workforce planning and resourcing guarantees. Federally, the reforms would also create independent body determined university funding, which
Sentry
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MAY 2021
would operate at arms-length from government thus depoliticising higher education funding. None of this is impossible; indeed, many other countries already have higher education that is fee-free for students and with far better government funding. The Morrison Government’s response to the COVID-19 crisis has not been to reimagine what a world leading tertiary sector could look like; indeed, they haven’t even acknowledged the vital role that our public universities and TAFEs could play in revitalising our economy, leading innovation and in rebuilding our communities as we move beyond the pandemic. The 2020-21 Budget is a major disappointment, but not only because the outlook is short term and new funding primarily targeted at for profit, private providers. Nor is it because it fails to assist Australia’s 4th largest export industry during a time of unprecedented revenue and job losses. The greatest disappointment is that this is a Budget that has no vision for the sector, and instead sets our public universities and TAFEs up for even greater financial stress which could threaten the future of quality education and research.
