If Labor is traditionally the party of spending, not scrimping, on popular areas, it has provided evidence for this. In opposition leader Bill Shorten’s Budget reply last night, he announced a bounty for both universities and the VET sector. The ...

While metropolitan and rural universities alike are, for once, mostly pleased with the Budget, students feel neglected. Tertiary institutions praised, among other measures, the boost in research funding. At the same time, the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations (CAPA) lamented the ...

A surplus of skilled migrants is potentially leading to even greater job competition for graduates, a population expert has suggested. Dr Bob Birrell, the founding director of the Centre for Population and Urban Research at Monash University, and now the President ...

Malcolm Turnbull shared his strong thoughts on law degrees with Canberra radio station 2CC late last week. What’s news to no-one is that he – like many others – thinks too many people are studying law. The scoop? That they’d be “better ...

Despite rural, regional and remote universities being ‘anchor institutions’ – the economic and intellectual hearts of their respective towns – they’re not recognised as such by the federal government. That’s the key message of the Regional Universities Network (RUN)’s new National Regional ...

“People are making complicated – and sometimes deeply personal – decisions to withdraw from study when life gets in the way. We shouldn’t pressure students to stay enrolled if they need to care for a dying parent, for instance, and ...

The federal government’s proposed higher education reforms have hit a wall and failed in the senate, after the Nick Xenophon Team (NXT) rejected the key elements of the controversial package yesterday. The three-senator and one MP team has effectively ruled out ...

Conor King, executive director of the Innovative Research Universities (IRU), wants the government to know that universities aren’t as cashed up as many assume. Also, he contends, the government’s other presumptions on which university funding plans are based are false. For example, although ...

Since the demise of the infamous VET FEE-HELP scheme, there has been a spike in vocational colleges applying to become higher education institutions. The Tertiary Education Quality Standards Agency (TEQSA)’s quarterly report shows that 86 prospective providers applied to become ...

Universities “are, and always will be, bigger than the nation state” said incoming chair of Universities Australia (UA) professor Margaret Gardner to the lobby group’s annual conference today. She implored its member institutions to rally against the waves of populist ...