25 September 1997
Neither Cutting Nor Capping Higher Education is Right in the New Era of Global Competition

The Australian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee (AVCC) has released a chart showing the long term decline in Government funding per full-time student, which highlights the fall in the level of net Government operating grants to higher education which had begun under Labor and which has continued and intensified under the Howard Government.

The release of the AVCC chart has been in response to repeated claims by the Minister for Employment, Education and Training and Youth Affairs, Senator Amanda Vanstone that university funding has been ‘capped’ not ‘cut’. In support of her view, Senator Vanstone had earlier issued her own chart - most recently via a mouse-pad presented at the National Press Club - purporting to highlight the steadiness of the Government’s funding commitment for 1996-2000 compared with the decline in the latter years of the previous Government. However, the Minister’s figures ignore the fact that an increasing proportion of Government operating grants are funded by HECS receipts - that is, by students - and a declining proportion by taxation revenue. The AVCC chart demonstrates the true state of affairs.

The AVCC chart shows that following a decline from the early 1980’s, total funding has remained relatively constant at the level set in 1988 but that when the increased level of student payments is removed, it can be seen that there has been a significant decline in the Government’s net funding commitment, especially since the first Howard Government budget in 1996.

AVCC Executive Director, Stuart Hamilton, said that sterile debates about whether funding had been cut or capped masked the fact that universities have coped with massive restructuring over the past 15 years as governments have cut the level of their commitment.

"At the same time as governments have been reducing the level of their commitment, the price of keeping our universities up to world standard has continued to climb. It is now well past time that we began to focus on the new higher education environment and what is needed for Australia to maintain its international competitiveness in higher education over the longer term.

"We cannot continue on the basis of a funding model which locks us into the 1980’s. Investment to keep us in the race needs to go up from both public and private sources, as argued in the Vice-Chancellors’ 16 September statement. Neither capping or cutting is the answer."

Attachment:
Break-up of Operating Grant Funding for Higher Education by Student and Government Contributions.

Graph

Media Inquiries: Greg Ellis

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