Higher Education Funding

[Niko]

Public funding per student is on the slide

There is broad agreement that:

• higher education is extremely important, if not vital, in the fast-approaching knowledge economy.
• that research and development account for an increasing share of global trade.
• that doctors, engineers and other trained professionals are in short supply.
• and that universities incubate the elites who will go on to represent this country in politics, diplomacy and the arts.

And yet none of the contributors to higher education funding - the federal government, the states, the industries that benefit from university R&D - seem prepared to step up to the plate.

What is more, they all seem to agree that some other party is letting the team down.

No wonder why governments are routinely criticised by vice-chancellors for allowing funding per student to slide over the past 2 decades.

Opinion by Luke Slattery