The Australian Government Education Minister Dan Tehan recently announced a new funding model proposal for 2021 for Universities in Australia, and published the “Job-ready Graduates Discussion Paper” on 19 June 2020. I have collated and analysed some of the data from that paper and prepared a PDF document with additional data here.
Student funding contributions and Government contributions are compared for the different disciplines for 2021. Firstly using the current funding model, then using a proposed new funding model that is released for discussion.
The major change for students at one extreme means they will have to pay for 93% of their degree studies, which is a 28% increase for Law and Economics students and a massive 113% increase for many Humanities students (Social Studies, Political Science, Behavioural Science, Philosophy, History, and Communications). At the other extreme, Agriculture students will only pay 12%, Nursing and Languages 18% of their education. That represents a reduction of 62% in fees for Agriculture students and 46% reduction for Nursing and Languages.
Government funding has seen a reduction of between 82% and 92% for most of the Humanities, a reduction of 51% for Law, Economics, Management and Commerce. Reductions of 14% for Science and Engineering, and 33% for Environmental Studies. A massive increase of 117% to English, plus generous increases to Maths, Other Health, Architecture, IT (all 23%), Languages (22%), Teaching (18%), and more modest increases to Nursing (9%), Agriculture, Medical, Dental, and Veterinary Science (all 10%). There is no change to Government funding proposed for Clinical Psychology, Allied Health, or Creative Arts.
The “Job-ready Graduates Discussion Paper” is available here.
The current funding arrangements for 2020 can be found here.
David Hirst 