Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, , 8:30 to 16:08
Discussion focuses on the omission of student contributions from the ATEC legislation and the negative impacts of the Job-Ready Graduates scheme on equity.
Topics: Education, Agricultural research and levies
Speakers: Distinguished Professor George Williams, David Pocock, Vicki Thomson, Paul Harris, Unknown Speaker, Marielle Smith
>> Thank you. That that that's that's really useful. Um, I'm interested looking at the the the the legislation. Um, why do you think the bill doesn't explicitly give a tech the power to review student contributions? Um, and I'm wondering if this if this came up in in consultations. Uh, it seems like an unusual omission for me to to not have student contributions being being looked
>> and in our position we would say that that that's clearly an oversight. If we look at what a tech needs to do um it's stewardship of the sector but for what purpose and for whom is the question. The aim is not uh simply to steward the sector for its own sake. It's to serve the needs of students and community. And when it comes to the need for a holistic perspective of course the body needs to be look at not only the comwalth contributions but the student contributions. Otherwise, you're missing a key part um of the problem. And we'd also acknowledge that it's critical because the biggest and most urgent task we're facing at the moment is the need to unravel the job ready graduate scheme. I mean, I've described that as one of the top five worst policy mistakes made by the Comwalth this century. Um it is having enormous uh and negative impacts upon students, particularly those most in need of the mobility and benefits that higher education brings. So we would say at the IU that this is just look it's an oversight. We're not sure as to the reason easily fixed and it very clearly should be included otherwise the body will be unable to fulfill that key stewardship function on behalf of students
>> and and we can see senator in the student data um an emerging and widening gap between students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and all other student groups and so we think if the ache doesn't have the ability to provide advice on the cost of higher education to students as well as the cost to government it is going to run the risk of undermining the accord in the long
>> Mr. Harris, just on job breed gra I was keen to ask you um a couple of questions there looking at um some of the research you've done on the impacts of JRG some pretty startling findings and and specifically I wanted to um ask you about and I'll quote the combined effect of JRG changes reduced university base funding by 813 million in 2024. um that seems like a big hit to already stretched university budgets. Could you maybe just talk through how how that actually works?
>> Absolutely, Senator. So, what we're seeing um with the student data and the financial data is um increasing impacts of the job ready graduates. So, students are paying more and we think the students in the highest um charging fee bands paid about $1.3 billion more in 2024 than they would have under the prejudg arrangements. Some many students are paying more, some students are paying less. It's a it's a complicated system and in fact JRG makes our system more complicated than it needs to be. Um but overall students are paying more for for higher education. Government is contributing less and that's leading to a kind of decline in the funding that universities have to provide teaching and learning for students.
Professor Williams, you mentioned um J widening inequity um and and some of the data I've seen basically means that students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds can't afford to study things like law anymore. And I wonder if you have any more data on that or if you can talk us through what's happening sort of on the ground at universities.
>> Yeah. Yeah. And and the and the data is in we've had this now for some years and it's very clear that it is preventing and affecting choices in ways that were not intended and and that's clear. I mean the Morrison government didn't intend to prevent low SCES students from going to university. But that's what's happening. The scheme was a market intervention that was illconsidered that fundamentally misunderstood student choice and behavior. Of course the idea was that let's skyrocket the price of an arts degree and a student will take maths. Doesn't happen that way. And you know 55,000 as opposed to about 15,000 between those programs is a massive market intervention and price disincentive. The reason it doesn't work is because students don't make choices in that way. Um they're passionate about an area. They won't swap from arts to maths or to agriculture or the like. But what does happen is particularly for price sensitive groups and we're talking here low SCES indigenous and others is it makes them less likely to choose to go to university at all. Um and uh we've got to remember the arts degree in particular is the degree of choice for indigenous low SCEs and women. It is their pathway often to a law degree and other programs start with arts transfer. So we're pricing them out of the key pathway um to mobility. And what the data shows is particularly for those students um across the period 20 to 2024 we see low SCES commencements down just under 10% um 9.8.
Oh, we've just lost
>> these ambitious accord targets is going the wrong way. And >> and when you talk about law, um I mean my own field, yes, over that period, we've seen low SCS commencements drop 17.7%. And other groups have gone up 2.3%. So very clear delineations between lows and other students. And again, those the system should serve are being cut out uh by a pricing scheme that is very unfair and regressive.
>> Thank you. And Senator, if I if we can just bring it back to the A Techch legislation, that's why we think it's so critical that there is an amendment to make sure that the commission can look at these issues.
>> Yes. Thank you. U just just finally, uh Miss Thompson, you argue that research and research training should be explicitly embedded in a tech uh remitt. Um, as a senator, it seems a little bit awkward to be considering this bill uh when the SR review still hasn't been released by government. Um, surely a tech room should actually align with the S review recommendations. We obviously don't have that yet, but I'm interested to hear from you around the need to ensure that research and research training is embedded in in in a tech.
>> Thank you, Senator. And you're quite right. we don't have the uh the results of or the outcomes of the third review but not withstanding that um the research is such an intrinsic part of what our universities do. It's a core part of our business and the the fundamental connection if you like between our funding model and we've talked previously I've I've said this many times both to you directly and and to Senate committees where we have a a entrenched systemic flawed funding model where our cross subsidization is so we're so reliant on international fee revenue across the sector and particularly the group of eight to fund both our domestic teaching in part and our uh research really needs examination and um I'm not sure that the SER is the place for that. The SER is a very defined report looking at the strategic examination of R&D and how do we actually consolidate the disperate sort of research programs across the sector and drive commercialization. Whereas the ATH is a body which is looking at the systemic issues in our universities, the ability to actually um recommend policy changes and to actually look at the structural reform issues and funding issues that are hampering our universities. So it's a glaring omission from our perspective not to have research given it's so embedded in what we do as universities embedded in our tertiary education commission.
>> Thank you very much. Thank you chair.