Labor is on the record that it will restore demand driven funding, which university lobbies like, a lot (CMM May 14). They shouldn’t. Unlike the old system, higher education under any DDFII will probably have to compete with TAFE for funded students. As Labor education shadow Tanya Plibersek explained on Sky News yesterday;

“People throughout their post-school life will be doing some qualifications at uni, some at TAFE. The TAFEs have been really run down in recent years and what we want to see is a world-class university system, side by side with a world class TAFE system so that people can make decisions, when they finish school or throughout their working lives, to get great qualifications in either stream, TAFE or university, and to see both of those working more closely together. … It won’t be universities on (their) own in the future, we’ll be getting our skills and education from all those institutions.”

Less demand, than competition-for-students-who-have-a-choice-of-systems, driven funding.