New Players in Higher Education
20 August 2005
A few months ago it was a national Ministerial forum in Canberra
to formulate a new framework for dividing up research funds for
universities. This week it has been a national forum in Melbourne
to discuss whether changes are needed in the so-called 'national
protocols' that determine who is and who is not allowed to use that
highly protected word 'university'.
The Federal Minister, Dr Brendan Nelson, has through his issues
paper 'Building University Diversity', encouraged a broad debate on
whether we need revised criteria, or protocols, which open up the
university sector, in particular, to new players.
At present the universities in this country are predominantly
public, even though public money is a diminishing proportion of the
revenues on which they rely. There are also two private
universities, Bond and Notre Dame, as well as some 'higher
education providers' like Australian Maritime College, all of which
are seeking additional public monies, and some wishing to use the
title 'university' because they know that access to that title will
give them greater pulling power here and overseas. This week that
group was joined by the US based Carnegie Mellon University in
Adelaide. Despite having $1 billion in endowments in the US, the
South Australian Government induced them to Adelaide with a carrot
of $20 million - an inducement not provided to any Australian
university to operate offshore. It is a teaching-only
university.
A good deal of attention is being paid to the diversity of
providers in the US and UK systems, in particular.
The US has always had a highly differentiated higher education
sector, and a huge range of colleges and universities with varying
standards and reputations, servicing its widely dispersed 300
million population.
The UK system for a 60 million population has only very recently
changed its higher educations system and the ways in which it has
been changed provide signals about Australia's future.
The changes everywhere are driven by the needs of different
students, from elite world class study opportunities, to cheap but
efficient and popular universities that can provide online or basic
campus-based experiences, in a narrow range of fields, often more
quickly than the standard three-year degree program. For many who
do not any longer want the traditional university experience and
simply want to get their degree and get into the workforce, the new
providers have considerable appeal, as evidenced by universities
like Phoenix in the US, in particular.
A feature of both the US and now the UK system is that they both
allow 'teaching only' universities, whereas the current Australian
system, servicing 20 million people, through the national protocols
has insisted on research and breadth and depth of offerings as
being a fundamental requirement for any provider wishing to be a
university.
Such requirements have led to a quality system but one which
deters new entrants because of the prohibitive costs of $50-100
million that are considered necessary to establish a new greenfield
traditional university.
There is, however, little doubt that the protocols will in fact
soon be changed and the only issue is really the extent of the
change, and the implications those changes will have for the
perceptions of quality of 'brand-Australia'.
Viewing the UK and US is useful because those are our friends
and competitors. There is also an undeniable pressure to produce
world-class results from our universities, just as much as there is
a need to provide a value-for-money degree for financially
overburdened students.
As one of the many areas open for reform, it's going to be
fascinating and challenging to deal with the emerging context of
greater diversity.
Professor Paul Thomas is Vice-Chancellor of University of
the Sunshine Coast