Category: Higher education

Do uni class sizes matter?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 7 Comments

Should we worry that uni student numbers have grown more quickly than academic staff numbers? The history of school research on student:staff ratios suggest that we should be cautious about making lower SSRs a policy priority. Most analysis has found little or no educational benefit in reducing school student:staff ratios. Increased SSRs may be a sign of higher productivity rather than a problem.

Given that uni students are supposed to be more independent learners than schools students, universities (with rare exceptions like the Oxbridge tutorial system) have always used large groups methods of instruction such as lectures. Unis can teach many more people at the same time than schools.

On interesting question is whether if the class expands beyond the size where personal interaction is feasible, does it matter whether there are 100, 200, 300 or more students in the room? If, as the school research suggests, it is teacher quality that matters most to learning it might be better to have the best lecturer teach a class of 300 than to have six not-so-good lecturers take six classes of 50. Continue reading “Do uni class sizes matter?” →

Are student:staff ratios a useful university indicator?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 2 Comments

Universities often complain about rising student:staff ratios. These rose from around 14:1 in 1990 to around 21:1 in 2007.* By contrast in schools student:staff ratios declined from 15.4:1 to 13.9 to 1.

But what does a student:staff ratio actually mean for teaching in a university context? In schools, a student:staff ratio of 14:1 will often mean just that – than in the average school, there are 14 students for every 1 member of the teaching staff.

In universities that isn’t the case. A student:staff ratio of 21:1 means 21 full-time equivalent students (EFTSL) to each full-time equivalent (FTE) teaching or teaching/research staff member. Due to part-time uni students, there are 1.4 persons for every EFTSL. But due to casualisation of university teaching staff, according to a report in the Higher Education Supplement one staff FTE could be 7 or 8 casuals (they represent about 20% of FTE teaching staff). So on a person to person basis, the university student:staff ratio is likely to be less than 21:1. Continue reading “Are student:staff ratios a useful university indicator?” →

No progress to graduate target

~ Andrew Norton ~ Leave a comment

The latest issue of ABS Education and Work suggests that maybe we have headed slightly backwards on our way to the government’s target of 40% of 25-34 year olds having degrees. From 34.6% last year the ABS finds 34.2% this year. But the differences aren’t statistically significant.

On the other hand, there is one factor that might slow growth a little. In 2003, the government announced that it was going to penalise universities that ‘over-enrolled’ too much. This flowed through to slightly lower commencements in subsequent years, and a small drop in completions 2006-2008. Combine that with a slight increase in the size of the relevant age cohorts and it’s likely that we have some slightly less educated birth years now reaching the 25-34 age group (assuming they did not take advantage of renewed growth in places later).

Against this migration would be pushing the numbers up – due to migration criteria permanent migrants aged 25-34 are more educated than Australian-born people of the same age.

Education and Work also shows essentially no change in graduate over-qualification from 2009 – 27.4% last year, 27% this year. Graduate unemployment fell from 3.4% to 2.5%.

Who should get the sandstone premium?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 16 Comments

In The Australian yesterday Australian Catholic University VC Greg Craven argued against deregulation of student contribution amounts.

I’ll leave his equity and participation arguments for another day. But part of Craven’s objection is that he thinks the Group of Eight universities will be able to charge more than other unis, and he doesn’t like that idea.

Craven’s main argument seems to be that though Group of Eight universities argue for more funding on the basis of teaching quality, there is no guarantee that additional fee revenue will in fact be spent on teaching. Instead, Group of Eight unis will charge more because of their historical prestige and spend some of the money on other things, especially research.

Fees charged to international students certainly suggest that there is sandstone premium. I did a quick comparison of 2010 international fees in five sandstones (UQ, USyd, UMelb, UAd, UWA) and seven lower-prestige institutions (Victoria Uni, UWS, USA, ECU, Canberra, ACU). The sandstone premium ranged from 10% in education to nearly 80% in commerce/business courses. Continue reading “Who should get the sandstone premium?” →

Will student demand guide higher education well?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 11 Comments

Last week’s Age education section ran this piece suggesting that a demand-driven system of higher education wouldn’t work.

Yesterday they ran my partial op-ed response to this; it doesn’t seem to be on the Age website but it is up at the CIS website.

The point I took up was this:

The tendency of students to prefer prestigious courses such as law highlights the question of how the government will ensure a student-centred system delivers the right mix of graduates to tackle Australia’s skills crisis.

But demand for law degrees also highlights another danger. Under a demand-driven system, popular fields of study could push out other, less-popular but no less important study areas.

Some key points from my response: Continue reading “Will student demand guide higher education well?” →

Why do graduates lean left?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 23 Comments

James Paterson had an op-ed in yesterday’s Weekend Australian arguing that uni graduates lean left, and blaming it in part on academic bias.

I had a look at the party id question in the Australian Survey of Social Attitudes 2009 and the differences by qualification level are certainly striking. However people with TAFE certificates and diplomas have similar affiliations to people with bachelor degrees, despite the fact that there are few ‘political’ courses taught by these institutions.

On the other hand, those who spend longer at university, postgraduates, end up with more left-wing affiliations than bachelor degree holders. This leaves open the possibility of a ‘university’ effect on political views.

Party identification (%)

Continue reading “Why do graduates lean left?” →

Another higher education review

~ Andrew Norton ~ 7 Comments

The government has finally announced the terms of reference and review panel for its review of university teaching funding. It was first promised in the May 2009 Budget.

The terms of reference acknowledge that the proposed new regulation of institutional and course standards changes things fundamentally. It would be irrational for one arm of government to set standards and another deny universities the finance needed to meet those standards (though as I have long had to tell bewildered newcomers to higher education policy, the fact that something is absurd has never been regarded as a valid argument against it).

The terms of reference are silent on one of the biggest issues in costs, whether the per student funding rate includes funding for research time. If it costs teaching alone – say 8 months a year including preparation time – the current funding rates probably are more or less adequate for a standardised education product. If research is not included, it will lead to a massive shake-up of the whole sector. Continue reading “Another higher education review” →

A crisis of capitalism turns into a crisis of social democracy

~ Andrew Norton ~ 15 Comments

Higher education has been hit hard in the British spending review, with funding to be reduced from £7.1 billion to £4.9 billion by 2014-15. Reports suggest that their low-tech subjects may have their funding cut entirely. The fee increases flowing from the Browne report will presumably make up most if not all the losses.

In Australia HECS successfully transferred costs from taxpayers to students/graduates with no loss of graduate numbers. It will be interesting to see how these UK changes go, as the cuts are much larger and quicker than anything seen here.

This financial crisis is not having the political consequences I expected two years ago, or what our unlamented former leader predicted in his Monthly essays. In Europe, it has become a crisis of social democracy. Their bloated welfare states were in bad financial shape before the financial crisis struck; now they simply unable to cope. Continue reading “A crisis of capitalism turns into a crisis of social democracy” →

Do unis contribute to business innovation?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 4 Comments

While in Sydney for the Mont Pelerin Society meeting last week, I was the commenter on a Shaken and Stirred dinner talk by Terence Kealey, VC of the University of Buckingham, the UK’s only private university. He’s profiled in today’s Higher Education Supplement.

Kealey is unlike most VCs. The first thing that strikes you is his personality – an extrovert among introverts. The second thing that strikes you are his political views – a university leader who spurns government funding in an industry convinced that it should receive large handouts in the ‘public interest’.

I think Kealey is right that the obsession with linking university research to industry and ‘innovation’ is largely misguided. We’ve had at least 20 years of this as a policy priority. In my comments I argued that the results here are as disappointing as Kealey argues they have been elsewhere. Continue reading “Do unis contribute to business innovation?” →

A radical plan for British higher education

~ Andrew Norton ~ 4 Comments

The UK Browne report on higher education was released last week, and unsurprisingly it has been controversial.

The main features:

* As in Australia from 2012, Browne proposes that universities compete for students rather than having student places allocated to them. However there is an important difference. In the UK, the government would still control the number of places by setting minimum entry standards for a supported place. In Australia, places will effectively be allocated by universities. I have argued for the Australian approach on the grounds that I do not believe the central planner can make good judgments at the margins as to which applicants are worth selecting. But given the cost blowouts in Australia I can understand why the Brits may want to take another approach.

* Like in Australia, there would be only limited capacity for new providers to enter the system. It seems the only way in is by offering ‘priority’ courses. This is a mistake if they want (as they say) to encourage competition. Continue reading “A radical plan for British higher education” →