Month: December 2023

What’s going on with domestic undergraduate numbers? Part 1, Demographic differences

Andrew Norton3 Comments

Higher education enrolment data for 2022 was released on Monday. Overall enrolments fell 3.2% in 2022 compared to 2021. A 1.9% increase in international student numbers partly offset a 5.1% decline in domestic numbers. In 2021 overall enrolments also fell, with the opposite dynamic – an increase in domestic students partly offset a decline in international student numbers. The 2021 and 2022 enrolment decreases were the first total enrolment reversals since the early 1950s.

Domestic undergraduates

This post focuses on domestic undergraduates, the subject of many media inquiries and much speculation. The chart below shows that enrolments started growing in the late 2000s, at a fast rate during the demand driven funding era, before entering a more subdued phase in the late 2010s and then the decline discussed in this post. Sub-bachelor courses are a larger share of the total more recently than in the 2000s.

Overall domestic bachelor enrolments decreased 4.9% in 2022 compared to 2021. Despite a 2 percentage point increase in attrition rates for commencing 2021 students into 2022, the continuing cohorts offset a larger fall in commencing bachelor-degree students of 8.6%. That’s more than double the previous largest commencing student decline this century, in 2003, when the then-minister cracked down on over-enrolments. Sub-bachelor numbers are down around 4% for both commencing and total.

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The revised support for students policy

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The draft support for students guidelines received significant negative feedback from the higher education sector. As I wrote in a couple of blog posts, the guidelines interfered in matters of academic judgment and interacted with existing regulations in ways that create duplication and confusion.

Academic judgment

I’m glad to say that the interference in academic judgment provisions have been removed in the enacted support for students guidelines.

Regulatory overlap

The support guidelines explanatory statement discusses their relationship with the higher education threshold standards, which are administered by TEQSA. It says that the threshold standards set the ‘minimum’ requirements while the support for students policy, which is administered by the Department of Education, sets ‘additional, complementary requirements on providers to support their students.’

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Reducing the number of ‘permanently temporary’ former international students

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While I agree with the goals of today’s big migration policy changes, they will make life more difficult for universities relying on migration-motivated international students. In most cases, former international students will be able to stay in Australia on temporary graduate visas for less time than now. Other options for remaining in Australia, such as returning to a student visa, will become more difficult.

These policy changes aim to reduce temporary migrant numbers. The pressure temporary migrants place on accommodation and other services made this an urgent policy and political issue. But prior to this there were also significant concerns about temporary migrants themselves, in their vulnerability to labour market exploitation and prolonging their time in Australia in the often false hope of eventual permanent residence, as ‘permanently temporary’ migrants. The Parkinson migration review, released in March this year, set out an agenda for change.

Future policy on permanent residence is still under development, with some signals discussed below. Whether the number of former international students getting PR will go down remains to be seen. But clearer rules will mean PR aspirants can cut their losses at an earlier point. Fewer will delay important career and family events and decisions due to uncertainty about their long-term country of residence.

Shorter-stay temporary graduate visas

In September 2022 the government announced its decision to add two years to the sub-class 485 temporary graduate visa for graduates with degrees in areas of ‘verified skill shortages’. In the critique I wrote at the time I was ‘far from convinced that a 485 time extension is a good or ethical policy’, and so I am glad that this policy will be abolished.

As the chart below from the migration plan shows, they will also cut the base time period for a masters by coursework from three years to two years, and for a PhD from four years to three years. The regional extension, however, will remain.

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The complex rules around admitting, funding and supporting higher education students

Andrew Norton1 Comment

[Update 18/12/2023: Some parts of this post have been revised as the enacted student support guidelines replaced the draft guidelines. The revisions are noted in the text.]

The support for students policy discussed in a previous post adds to an already complex system for admitting, funding and supporting higher education students. Universities have strongly argued against additional bureaucratic processes in areas covered by existing regulation. This is a positive sign – a much better strategy than taking under-funded nuclear submarine student places – and I hear that the final support for students guidelines will be at least somewhat better than the draft guidelines.

The content below is my attempt to understand how all the different rules in this space overlap, interact and potentially contradict each other. While the support for students parts may change soon (the legislation operates from 1 January 2024 [Update 18/12/2023: Now delayed until 1 April 2024]), some existing rules look redundant to me. A warning: this post contains mind-numbing details and distinctions.

Initial admission to a course

The most general rules apply on admission to a course, with TEQSA responsible for enforcement. These protect high-risk students and appear in the higher education threshold standards. They require that:

“Admissions policies, requirements and procedures are … designed to ensure that admitted students have the academic preparation and proficiency in English needed to participate in their intended study, and no known limitations that would be expected to impede their progression and completion”: Part A, section 1.1.

Order of funding priority

For Commonwealth supported students selection decisions must, in the “provider’s reasonable view” be made on “merit”: section 19-35(2) of the Higher Education Support Act 2003. The provider can, however, take into account “educational disadvantages that a particular student has experienced”: section 19-35(3).

As I noted last year, this requirement is in tension with university practices and government policies on admitting members of equity groups in preference to other applicants. The equity group categories are only proxies for educational disadvantage; membership does not say anything certain about a “particular student”.

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