Category: Higher education

Are your uni days the best of your life?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 7 Comments

The SMH yesterday wrote up this report which, as many other analyses have, finds graduates are not happier than other people (though the research is mixed on this; some studies do find a benefit, and in the 2007 Australian Survey of Social Attitudes sample graduates are happier).

Education and happiness in the school-to-work transition by Curtin University’s Michael Dockery is especially interesting on the question of graduates and happiness because it uses the the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY), which tracks the same individuals over time. They start when the respondents are in Year 9 and finish when they are in their mid-20s. This lets us see happiness over time and the possible effects of changing circumstances.

Happiness relative to mean, by educational attainment

Source: Figure 2(b) in Education and happiness in the school-to-work transition, published by NCVER

What this shows is that people who will eventually get undergraduate degrees start out with above average happiness and end up with slightly below average happiness. People who will eventually get postgraduate degrees are the happiest in 1997, but only average in 2006. By contrast, those who destined for lower qualifications are relatively unhappy in 1997 but happier (relatively, and in asbolute terms) in 2006.

Continue reading “Are your uni days the best of your life?” →

Does full-fare public transport deter international students?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 10 Comments

International students have long campaigned for public transport fare concessions. I have argued before that this is based on a mistaken understanding of why Australian students receive cheaper fares, but I will concede that there is potentially an interesting debate here about the status of long-term but legally temporary residents in Australia. A massive increase in their numbers – principally international students and section 457 visa holders – during the Howard years creates issues we’ve never really had to think about before (I might post on this some other time).

While I can sympathise but not agree with the international students, I have no sympathy at all with the arguments made by my colleagues in the higher education sector.

An op-ed by La Trobe academic Anthony Jarvis in The Age uses the ‘financial burden’ of overseas study as a rationale for extending transport concessions. But surely the very high fees charged by universities are a far more significant burden. For example a La Trobe business course would cost an international student more than $18,000 a year, an 80% mark-up on what La Trobe gets for a domestic student. Continue reading “Does full-fare public transport deter international students?” →

Should the My University website be the My Higher Education website?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 12 Comments

Yesterday Julia Gillard promised a My School companion, a My University website. There are already similar websites operating in the US and in the UK.

A My University website is a far better idea that the ‘performance funding’ policy foreshadowed last year, which will use much of the same data but hand out cash according to the DEEWR bureaucracy’s definition of ‘performance’. As I argued at the time, many of these measures do not clearly measure ‘performance’, or involve trade-offs that universities and students should decide on, not bureaucrats. If would-be students are given the data, they can determine what weight if any to give it.

The My University website concept needs to expand to include private providers of higher education. Continue reading “Should the My University website be the My Higher Education website?” →

Are academic standards declining?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 10 Comments

Another interesting observation, as a former university employee, is the declining academic standards upon the increase of alien [sic – he means international, not interplanetary] students.

– Commenter ‘Baz’, 19 February

The claim that academic standards are in decline is always with us; only the cause varies (mass education, progressive education, managerialism, government funding cuts etc etc). But since academic standards are generally set internally by universities it is hard for outsiders to assess the credibilty of declinist claims.

My response to these allegations has been that while the absence of external standard-setting and scrutiny makes declining academic standards possible, proxy data hasn’t supported the declinist thesis. Employers are not, for example, showing their dissatisfaction by employing fewer graduates or giving them a lower premium for their degree (beyond the usual cyclical changes). And I have been observing for many years that pass rates are not showing any consistent upward trend.

However Baz’s comment prompted me to look at the latest data on ‘progress’ (ie pass) rates. Continue reading “Are academic standards declining?” →

Our incoherent HELP loan scheme

~ Andrew Norton ~ 7 Comments

The government today introduced its legislation to increase the undergraduate FEE-HELP debt surcharge from 20% to 25%. For example, under the current system an undergraduate who borrowed $10,000 under FEE-HELP would incur a debt of $12,000. From 1 July 2010, if this legislation passes, they would incur a debt of $12,500.

I think we need to look at the cost and coherence of the HELP student loan system. There is possibly a case for increasing the surcharge. However, in the absence of a broader review I believe the Coalition should vote against this ad hoc and arbitrary measure.

As I pointed out when this idea was first raised, this targets most of the higher education providers offering students a second chance – the TAFEs and private feeder colleges (given the migration reforms announced on Monday, the non-public university education sector could be forgiven for thinking that this government is trying to put them out of business). Continue reading “Our incoherent HELP loan scheme” →

An unfair university equity policy?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 29 Comments

Julia Gillard wants to to increase the number of low SES students, and to improve their pass and retention rates. The government has now proposed a number of ‘equity’ policies to achieve these goals.

In this week’s Campus Review I argue (try here if the CR link does not work) that we could be headed for an unfair equity policy.

Part of the problem is that though the government is seeking to replace the current postcode-based measure of SES, probably with individual measures such as parental education, it is still talking about classifying the lowest 25% as ‘low SES’. What I show in the CR article, principally using NAPLAN results, is that lowest 25% is a highly arbitrary cut-off point. People above and below it have very similar (and not especially good) levels of academic performance.

This wouldn’t necessarily matter much, except for the fact that under the government’s policies individual benefits will attach to a low SES classification. Continue reading “An unfair university equity policy?” →

VC actions undermine VC rhetoric

~ Andrew Norton ~ 19 Comments

Governments look at what vice-chancellors do, rather than listen to what vice-chancellors say. Last December I pointed out that the government is taking the willingness of universities to enrol additional Commonwealth-supported as evidence – contrary to the verbal claims of VCs – that it does not need to increase funding. I repeated the argument in the Higher Education Supplement this morning.

My article was written a couple of weeks ago, but the Higher Education Supplement’s lead story showed that not only will VCs take more students on the same rates as now, they will also take more students on lower rates. Three universities are reported in the story as planning to exceed their enrolment quota caps. When this happens, they get the student contribution amount but not the Commonwealth subsidy. For many disciplines, that is a third or less of the within-quota funding rate.

So these VCs say 100% of the usual funding rate is too little, but they behave as if one-third of the usual funding rate is enough. If you were a cash-strapped government, which would you believe? Continue reading “VC actions undermine VC rhetoric” →

Is the PhD a problem?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 20 Comments

Louis Menand’s new book, The Marketplace of Ideas: Reform and Resistance in the American University is mostly the ‘backstory’ of American higher education; it is lucid and erudite reporting as readers of his New Yorker articles would expect. He has not set out to be ‘prescriptivist’ (his word). But clearly he doesn’t like the American PhD.

To start with, it’s not clear that the PhD is fit for purpose. It can’t be a qualification for university teaching, since most PhD students are already teaching. Nor do PhDs clearly provide a contribution to scholarship, since many PhD theses are not of high quality (and probably even more are not read except by the student, his/her supervisor, and the examiners). Menand – a Professor of English at Harvard – suggests that ‘if every graduate student were required to publish a single peer-reviewed article instead of writing a thesis, the net result would probably be a plus for scholarship.’

Then there are what Menand calls the ‘humanitarian’ considerations. PhDs take a huge amount of time – though in the US they are nominally 4 years, most people take much longer. Median time to completion is 7 years in the natural sciences, 10 years in the social sciences, and 11 years in the humanities (including time out). Continue reading “Is the PhD a problem?” →

Education and living alone

~ Andrew Norton ~ 1 Comment

The Age this morning reports on research by David de Vaus and Sue Richardson on living alone. Though the economic incentives are to share – especially as governments bias more policies against singles – living alone is becoming more common. The proportion of people living alone increased from 11.9% in 1996 to 13% in 2006.

As de Vaus and Richardson note, educational disparities between men and women are part of the explanation. The tables in the paper make it a little hard to see what’s going on, as they report different groups as a % of the living alone. It is clearer when we look at the numbers of people in the different groups. Continue reading “Education and living alone” →

Higher education policy 1979

~ Andrew Norton ~ 1 Comment

As reported in the SMH, the National Archives today released two 1979 Cabinet papers on higher education.

One Cabinet submission was a proposal to re-introduce university fees, perhaps at about $1,000 a year. The arguments in favour were ‘equity’, noting the generally regressive nature of higher education subsidy; some microeconomic benefit in encouraging students to think more carefully about whether they should pursue higher education, and if so in which discipline; and budgetary savings.

The arguments against were essentially political – a 1977 election promise not to reintroduce fees, public criticism, and complications in Commonwealth-State relations (at the time, universities were funded via tied grants to the states, rather than directly). These arguments won.

This result seems to capture the long-term culture of higher education policy on the Coalition side – some broadly sound but half-hearted and quarter-way policy suggestions, trumped by political nervousness. There has never been a critical mass of Coalition MPs who care enough and know enough about the issue to take some political risks to achieve something really worthwhile. Continue reading “Higher education policy 1979” →