One Universities Accord interim report suggestion is a ‘universal learning entitlement’. But what would this mean, and how would it differ from what we have now?

The first part of this entitlement is to support Australians in obtaining a tertiary qualification. But it aims to go beyond ‘traditional targets’, such as for higher education or VET, to meet ‘a range of skills and other objectives’.

The interim report defines entitlement funding as ‘an appropriate combination of a public subsidy, a student contribution that would be paid through an income contingent loan … and, for some lifelong learning, an appropriate employer contribution’.

Current limits on higher education enrolments

While no Australian citizen is specifically disqualified from accessing a funded place in higher education, in practice three admissions-related obstacles can stand in their way.

Legally, universities are not supposed to take students without the English skills and academic preparation needed for the course. For Commonwealth supported students selection has to be based on merit, although educational disadvantage can be considered. Since Job-ready Graduates, universities are also supposed to assess, at the subject level, whether the person is a ‘genuine student’ and ‘academically suited’.

Financially, since the end of the demand driven system (2012-2017) university Commonwealth Grant Scheme funding has been capped, except for Indigenous students from regional areas since 2021.

In addition to these policy constraints, universities set threshold standards above the legal minimum and/or ration limited student places based on past academic performance or other admission criteria.

In recent years 10-12% of Year 12 applicants have not received an offer, but it is not possible to say which of the three obstacles is most significant.

A stronger right to a place?

On my reading of the interim report the Accord panel is not proposing open admissions. On page 131 the interim report says ‘any capable student would receive a CSP in a higher education course of their choosing’. On page 139 it says that ‘if a student is qualified for admission to a course in higher education they will receive government support’ (emphasis added in both sentences).

Given the interim report’s strong focus on increasing equity group enrolments that might mean amending the existing CSP ‘merit’ provisions so that social or economic as well as educational disadvantage can be considered (although as I noted last year this law is not obviously being complied with or enforced, since concessional entry schemes for members of equity groups already apply regardless of whether applicants personally have any verified ‘educational disadvantage’.)

But otherwise a ‘capable’ or ‘qualified’ person is already eligible for a student place – in the sense that a university would not be in legal trouble for taking them – under the current system.

The word ‘entitlement’ has to add to existing eligibility, and so the change proposed by the Accord panel must have something to do with funding and/or selection.

Lifting funding caps

A move from eligibility to entitlement needs to break, or at least substantially weaken, the link between annual budget setting and higher education. A universal learning entitlement would be more like a social security benefit – the government might control its costs by altering eligibility rules (including caps on use over a specified period), or reducing the amount paid per person, but anyone who is eligible for the benefit can get it.

On page 38, in the context of attainment targets, the report talks about ensuring applicants ‘can access a CSP at an institution of their choice.’ In the page 131 capable quote above it is a ‘course of their choice’. One interpretation of the Accord interim report is that institutional funding caps would be lifted, initially for equity groups, who are a priority due to ambitious targets (p.43). Extending demand driven funding from regional to metropolitan Indigenous students, as promised in the initial response to the Accord interim report, is an example.

But the panel is not proposing a general return to demand driven funding. On page 132, after mentioning employment problems for graduates in some fields during the demand driven era, they say that student choice should be balanced with the ‘system needing to supply graduates who meet the societal and economic needs of their region and the nation’. Demand driven funding is criticised for focusing only on the ‘willingness of a student to learn and the willingness of a provider to enrol.’

This implies a steering mechanism to encourage students to take courses the government deems necessary and discourage enrolments in other courses. The Job-ready Graduates price signals were not effective in this shared policy goal. One option might be a voucher system, with students given vouchers valid only for specified courses or fields of education but otherwise supporting a free choice of course and institution. Or as I suggested in my first Accord post there could be institution-level enrolment caps similar to those proposed in England for ‘low value’ courses with relatively poor student outcomes.

Giving universities less power to select students

Easing funding caps would, all other things being equal, increase enrolments. But students lack a strong entitlement while universities can select which applicants to admit.

Does the proposed learning entitlement mean that a university would be obliged to take a ‘capable’ or ‘qualified’ student? In Germany and France, as I understand it, all people who complete certain school qualifications are entitled to a place in a post-secondary institution. The numbers are managed with a streamed school system in Germany and by failing a large proportion of first year students in France.

Any school leaver with an ATAR over a certain point could be entitled to a place. The report’s 55 per cent higher education attainment target suggests a cut-off ATAR of 45. The report proposes greater provision of preparatory and enabling courses for people who might not be suited to immediate entry to a bachelor degree. Assessing the ‘capability’ of non-Year 12 applicants, a key group in ‘lifelong learning’, is more complicated but education providers have developed ways of assessing them.

The suggested ‘consistent national approach to tertiary education admission’ might just standardise entry requirements. But it could also reduce university discretion in accepting or rejecting prospective students. A new national admission centre, perhaps run by the proposed Tertiary Education Commission, could decide who was ‘capable’ or ‘qualified’. This would also be necessary for allocating vouchers, if that system was used.

I oppose a centralised admission system. Current admissions, ideally at least, are not so much about whether an applicant is generically suited to higher education as to whether they are a match for a specific course at a specific university. Universities will always know more about their courses and students than the Commission. What are the teaching and support staff saying? What are the students saying, directly or through surveys? What is the data on attendance, grades, and attrition telling us? Universities are in a much better place than a central universities bureaucracy to find answers to these questions and to take appropriate action.

Greater neutrality between education types?

I’ve focused on higher education, but another key difference between the current system and a universal learning entitlement is, if I read this right, more neutrality between types of education – that’s the ‘universal’ part. The higher education and vocational education public funding systems are separate except for a small overlap in the student loan system, and ‘lifelong’ non-credentialed learning has little public regulation or funding.

To impose fiscal constraint the learning entitlement might work by saying that each person has an account with X years or dollars of public subsidy plus Y dollars of income contingent loans. Each individual would decide their right mix of higher education, vocational education or non-credentialed learning.

Higher education has less to gain from a universal learning entitlement than vocational education. Full-fee courses and upfront fees without loans are common in vocational education, while domestic higher education students enjoy near-universal loans with most also entitled to tuition subsidies, at least for their undergraduate studies.

While subsidies and/or loans may assist some students in non-credentialed learning this would be the most problematic part of a ‘universal’ learning entitlement. I am not convinced there is a sufficient need for public policy intervention. The ‘entitlement’ could lead to costs currently being paid by employers being shifted to individuals and taxpayers.

While not mentioned in the universal learning entitlement sections of the report, elsewhere the Accord panel cautiously suggests loans for income support. Perhaps this could be bundled in as well (not that I recommend doing so).

Conclusion – ‘entitlement’ can be a euphemism for a cap

A learning ‘entitlement’ sounds good, but it is also a constraint. The existing higher education Student Learning Entitlement was introduced to block the occasional perpetual student, not to create any rights or opportunities that students did not already have.

Similarly bundling HECS-HELP into the longstanding FEE-HELP loan limit was designed to restrict lending, to prevent too many students taking on debt they have little prospect of repaying in full, not to create an entitlement.

The ‘national skills passport’ mooted by the interim report, while intended to provide an convenient summary of qualifications, experience and capabilities, could be used to limit further study by people deemed sufficiently educated already.

A national admissions centre would create a new mechanism for reducing spending, by tightening entry requirements.

When the Accord panel proposes centralisation of power we need to constantly ask how that power could be used, not just how they envisage it being used. This is not just in the near term, but by a future government or minister with little sympathy for the higher education sector.