Verity Firth (UTS) warns higher education “is showing signs of socio-economic segregation”

15 universities enrol almost 60 per cent of low SES students and eleven account for 60 per cent of rural and regional ones, she argues in a paper previewing an equity-practitioner strategy session, next Monday.

And in a message for the O’Kane Accord team she adds, “our current funding model does not appropriately support the universities which make this enormous contribution to low SES participation in Australian higher education.”

“For universities with high concentrations of equity cohorts, additional transition and academic support is needed to ensure student success.”

Professor Firth warns that if ‘the best teaching and learning” does indeed happen at research-strong universities then equity students are missing out.

“What are the incentives for universities with low numbers of equity cohorts to contribute to system growth, rather than just taking the best and brightest of a group of students already heading to university?”

And she calls for “a rehaul of the system (which) should reward collaboration between universities, so that we all work together to expand access for equity cohorts across the education ecosystem.”