Universities stable for now with more growth to come

Anybody who wants to understand Australian higher education (morning Minister Tehan) needs, needs, needs Andrew Norton and Ittima Cherastidtham’s fifth edition of the Grattan Institution’s guide to a system as baroque as it is byzantine, out this morning.

CMM asked Andrew Norton what all the evidence in the report indicates for the next few years.

* without policy intervention, domestic student demand will be stable for now

* student satisfaction will remain as is

* international student revenues could be at risk from policy changes, or “a souring of the environment,” if immigration is politicised

* the rate of research productivity growth will slow but certainly continue as investment based on the international student boom flows through the system.

And his advice for university’s looking a decade out.

“Universities should behave cautiously in the short-term but if the participation rate stays around 40 per cent there will be a surge in demand in the middle of the 2020s, as the Costello baby boomers start to enrol – perhaps 20 000 in 2026 – that’s the size of a new university,” Mr Norton says.

Scroll down for and Cherastidtham on the good-ish news on graduate income.


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