From:	Wilfrid Prest [Wilfrid.Prest@adelaide.edu.au]
Sent:	Saturday, 31 March 2001 10:17 AM
To:	eet.sen@aph.gov.au
Subject:	Submission: Capacity of Public Universities to meet Australia's Highed Education Needs
30 March 2001

The Secretary, 
Senate employment, Workplace Relations, Small Business and Education
Reference Committee
Suite S1.61 Parliament House
Canbera ACT 2600

While work pressures permit me to make only a brief submission to the
committee, my experiences in initiating and teaching a fee-paying
postgraduate course in Applied Historical Studies at the University of
Adelaide since 1996 would seem to be relevant to the committee's terms
of reference (especially a.iii,  b.1, and d.). 

Since 1996 30 students have enrolled and completed at least one semester
of study; just over half (17) were fee-paying; the rest received
HECS-funded places. Fees (fixed centrally by the University) have risen
from $4000 p.a. in 1996-7 to $6892 in 1998 and $7798 in 1999; following
this last increase only three students have entered the program, which
was suspended at the beginning of 2001.

My experience in teaching and assessing a mixture of fee-paying and
non-fee paying postgraduate students has not been an entirely happy one.
When the viability of an academic program is directly dependent on an
income stream generated by fee-paying students, it is extremely
difficult to prevent assessment and other decisions being coloured by
the knowledge that a particular individual is or is not paying fees. The
problem is exacerbated by the large premium fee charged to international
students. In one case of which I am aware, an administrative decision
was taken in my absence to permit such a student to continue in the
program despite having failed to achieve the prescribed necesssary
academic standard, for what can only have been financial reasons. 

There is little doubt that Australian universities are now in a parlous
state; while more directly and heavily regulated from Canberra than ever
before, they also receive less government funding for each enrolled
student than ever before. True, their plight is not unique - similar
pressures are being felt by Higher Education institutions across the
world. What makes the Australian position particularly worrying in terms
of academic integrity and quality is the mixture of direct fee-paying
and HECS funded students. Nowhere else, to the best of my knowledge, are
students who do not pay fees enrolled side by side with students whose
fees are an immediate source of revenue to that institution. (This is
because in other places fees are charged and collected by universities,
with access and equity issues handled by the provision of loans and
scholarships). The incentive to treat the fee-paying students more
generously than their HECS-funded classmates is obviously substantial.

It does seem to me that both the international reputation and objective
quality of Australian higher education will continue to decline so long
as the current funding regime remains in place. 

Wilfrid Prest

--
Professor Wilfrid Prest
Department of History
University of Adelaide
SA 5005
Tel: +61 8 8303 5605  Fax: +61 8 8303 3443

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