Education Minister Jason Clare wants a 20 per cent HE participation rate for low SES Australians – getting there will be complicated
To achieve it by 2030, low SES enrolments will need make up 35 per cent of all new enrolments, just over double the existing share, the Innovative Research Universities warn in a new paper, which may interest the O’Kane HE Accord team.
So are there alternatives to piling more low SES students into “equity intensive” universities already meeting the 20 per cent target?
IRU suggests four overall options
* all universities have 20 per cent low SES students: one problem is if universities with strong low SES enrolments now maintained them, other universities would have to aggressively recruit to reach target. This could lead to some “recruiting low SES students from equity-intensive universities with no direct impact on low SES participation.”
* all universities take more, but in proportion to present shares: this would achieve the target with the least change in the system. Whether this would be good for students depends on whether the existing pattern of enrolments works for them
* increases in proportion to their present domestic enrolment: this would most impact the Group of Eight, increasing their low SES students from 10 per cent of enrolments to 14 per cent by 2030
* increases proportional to the share of the low SES population by state and territory: Universities in Tasmania and South Australia could get to 20 per cent, due to the nature of their populations. Universities in the ACT would have no hope – bad for reaching growth funding targets.
Overall, IRU suggests, “if the higher education funding system is to remain constrained, growth funding should be ideally funded towards universities with demonstrated commitment and success in supporting low SES students.”
And the lobby also warns low socio-economic status is not the only measure of social disadvantage and under-representation in HE, pointing to, Indigenous Australians, regional-remote students, gender diverse people and persons with disabilities and carers, who “face difficulties accessing higher education.”