The number of student places at Australian universities has increased by more than a quarter since 2007, figures released by the government show.  Some 545,000 students will be at universities in 2012, an increase of five per cent on the 2011 figure ...

Despite strong demand and new uncapped enrolments, many of Australia’s nursing and midwifery schools have limited their 2012 student intakes due to continuing clinical placement uncertainty. Students returned to campuses around the country last week and universities began to take stock ...

Dr Caroline Perkins keeps a mental list of the “great initiatives” that help regional universities stay competitive with their metropolitan counterparts. On it are things like the Collaborative Research Networks program, the Structural Adjustment Fund, and regional loading.  So it’s little ...

Australia’s regional and newer universities have been put at risk of extinction by the recently introduced demand driven funding system, a conference in Sydney has been told. Dr Jamie Doughney, a senior lecturer at Victoria University’s school of applied economics, told ...

Universities across the country, free to set their own student numbers for the first time under the new demand-driven funding system, are reporting increases in student preferences for science courses, and parallel rises in offers being made for places. The ...

As our campuses begin to welcome the new cohort of students for 2012, tertiary education managers are assessing the dawn of the demand-driven system. Initially the impacts of the new system are likely to be modest as universities monitor their ...

Universities must remain vigilant or risk losing the momentum gained by a slew of new policies impacting higher education, says outgoing Universities Australia (UA) chief executive Dr Glenn Withers. In an interview with Campus Review, Withers predicted universities could return to ...

Allowing the market to dictate enrolments helps competition but may not always be good for the national interest. The federal government’s higher education reform agenda contains policy measures to promote three worthy objectives – participation, diversity and quality. The fundamental ...

Staff anxieties at two Sydney universities over the possibility of job cuts in the coming year could be a sign of tougher things to come, as universities attempt to make their money go further under demand-driven funding. Workers at both ...

Funding changes that will see courses below bachelor’s degrees removed from the demand-driven system have been cautiously embraced by the TAFE sector but will not protect that sector from being plundered by universities, experts say. The federal government announced last ...