[Update 18/12/2023: Some parts of this post have been revised as the enacted student support guidelines replaced the draft guidelines. The revisions are noted in the text.]

The support for students policy discussed in a previous post adds to an already complex system for admitting, funding and supporting higher education students. Universities have strongly argued against additional bureaucratic processes in areas covered by existing regulation. This is a positive sign – a much better strategy than taking under-funded nuclear submarine student places – and I hear that the final support for students guidelines will be at least somewhat better than the draft guidelines.

The content below is my attempt to understand how all the different rules in this space overlap, interact and potentially contradict each other. While the support for students parts may change soon (the legislation operates from 1 January 2024 [Update 18/12/2023: Now delayed until 1 April 2024]), some existing rules look redundant to me. A warning: this post contains mind-numbing details and distinctions.

Initial admission to a course

The most general rules apply on admission to a course, with TEQSA responsible for enforcement. These protect high-risk students and appear in the higher education threshold standards. They require that:

“Admissions policies, requirements and procedures are … designed to ensure that admitted students have the academic preparation and proficiency in English needed to participate in their intended study, and no known limitations that would be expected to impede their progression and completion”: Part A, section 1.1.

Order of funding priority

For Commonwealth supported students selection decisions must, in the “provider’s reasonable view” be made on “merit”: section 19-35(2) of the Higher Education Support Act 2003. The provider can, however, take into account “educational disadvantages that a particular student has experienced”: section 19-35(3).

As I noted last year, this requirement is in tension with university practices and government policies on admitting members of equity groups in preference to other applicants. The equity group categories are only proxies for educational disadvantage; membership does not say anything certain about a “particular student”.

Admission to a subject – academic

As a further risk management activity, with the Department of Education the regulator, higher education providers must, before enrolling a student in a unit of study (i.e. a subject), “assess the student as academically suitable to undertake the unit concerned”: section 19-42 of HESA 2003.

I’m unsure how this is done. For commencing students it seems to overlap with academic characteristics already assessed under the threshold standards admission rules. For subsequent semesters previous failed subjects are presumably the main warning signs of academic unsuitability. But even the previous government’s policy of cutting funding to students who successfully completed less than 50% of subjects taken gave bachelor degree students a full-time equivalent year to prove themselves, and continued to fund students with a high fail rate (and this policy will be repealed from 1 January 2024 [Update 18/12/2023: MYEFO has a confusing reference to making this retrospective for 2023.] )

Under section 36 of the Higher Education Provider Guidelines 2023 higher education providers must record how the student was assessed as being academically suited, and keep this information for seven years. Bachelor degree students alone took more than 5.6 million subjects in 2021, so this is a major data storage exercise.

Admission to a subject – funding

For funding purposes, the Secretary of the Department of Education or their delegate can determine that someone is not a “genuine student” in a unit of study: section 36-5(5) of HESA 2003 for CSPs; section 104-1(1AA) for FEE-HELP; section 128B-10 for STARTUP-HELP.

If the Secretary/delegate determines that a student is not genuine the higher education provider must re-credit the student’s HELP balance, i.e. refund the student contribution or fee: section 104-43 of HESA 2023.

Section 39 of the Higher Education Provider Guidelines 2023 lists matters to be taken into account when determining whether a student is genuine. These include, with a confusing slippage of language between “unit of study” and “course” (“course of study” in HESA 2003 means a series of subjects leading to a qualification):

• whether the student is reasonably engaged in the course;
• whether the student has satisfied course requirements for the course or participated in assessment activities for the course;
• if the course is an online course—the number of occasions on which the student has logged in to the course is not insignificant.

These indicators of non-genuineness can only be determined after classes have started. If students show any of these warning signs the provider should consider cancelling subject(s) enrolments prior to the census date. However, the threshold standards and the support for student policy create obligations not to cancel without trying to help the student.

Requirements for supporting students at risk of non-completion

The higher education threshold standards require processes for identifying students at risk of not being successful and for such students to be provided with support.

This is most specific in the transition phase into the course. Higher education providers need to:

• assess the needs and preparedness of individual students and cohorts
• undertake early assessment or review to identify needs for additional support
• provide access to informed advice and timely referral to academic or other support: Part A 1.3(2).

More generally, higher education providers need processes that identify students at risk of unsatisfactory progress and to provide them with specific support: section 1.3(4). TEQSA is the responsible regulator.

[Update 18/12/2023: The following paragraphs were revised to replace reference to the draft student support guidelines with the enacted student support guidelines.] Under the student support guidelines, regulated by the Department of Education, the provider needs a process for determining a student’s suitability to “continue to undertake a unit of study” if they are at risk of not successfully completing it: section 49A(1)(a). The threshold standards focus on the student, rather than the student in a specific unit of study, but otherwise these two requirements seem similar.

Before the subject census date, under the support for students guidelines, the provider has a duty to “proactively offer” support services – similar to “provide specific support” in the threshold standards – to students who have not already accessed them, based on risk factors that include:

• warning signs from the provider’s process for determining suitability for continuing to undertake the subject;
• previous failures to complete a unit of study in their course of study;
• low participation in the unit of study such as not attending classes or engaging with any content online: section 49A(1)(e).

These risk factors overlap with those in the genuine student test. For example “low participation” in a course (support for students) is presumably equivalent to not being “reasonably engaged” (genuine student). Both the support for students and genuine student policies see online activity as an indicator, but on this the support for students wording is better – not restricting the rule to entirely online courses, and engaging with content rather than just logging in a “not insignificant” number of times.

However, the genuine student policy leans the provider towards cancelling enrolments while the student support guidelines require effort to re-engage the students involved. This creates a grey area for higher education providers, especially for students with some but inadequate engagement.

Looping back to academic suitability

The information collected to ensure compliance with the support for students policy would provide additional information for assessing academic suitability for a subject.

If a student fails previous subjects despite significant support the case for excluding them will be stronger. However, any exclusion should be done ASAP so the student can make alternative plans. This means at the end of the previous semester rather than during the enrolment process.

There are real issues, but a simpler approach is needed

Students failing and/or dropping out when action by a higher education provider could have prevented these outcomes is a problem. So is students paying for subjects they were not engaged with because they had not unenrolled themselves prior to the census date.

Policies to encourage identifying these students and either engaging them or ending their enrolment are, in principle, a good idea.

But the potential situation by 1 April 2024, when the support for students laws come into effect, is that multiple laws and two regulators will cover this space in heavily overlapping ways (TEQSA course admission to filter out high-risk students, DofE policy to reduce academically unsuited students, TEQSA support for students, DofE support for students, DofE genuine student). The promised Student Ombudsman is likely to add a third agency.

The system needs to be simplified. I’ve never seen a good argument for the “academic suitability” at the subject level requirement. It was put in HESA 2003 as a reaction to VET FEE-HELP problems, without evidence of analogous issues in higher education.

If a student has been admitted to a course, and been allowed to re-enrol for another semester or year, they should be able to take any subject permitted as part of their course and year level without a separate subject-level “academic suitability” assessment. The processes for monitoring students after commencement can be used instead to manage higher-risk students, to reduce the chance of them incurring unnecessary HELP debt or getting fail grades on their academic record.

The genuine student and support for students policies should be integrated, with universities given clarity about the circumstances in which they can legally terminate an enrolment.

If the government can ever get its TCSI system operating properly we could use a risk-based approach, as was intended with TEQSA. Patterns of students repeatedly failing or dropping subjects would be red flags triggering further investigation, rather than every institution having to submit detailed reports to the Department, as the support for students policy requires.

The government’s overall low trust, high regulation approach requires universities to divert vast resources to compliance activities of limited value. It needs more careful analysis of the underlying problems and more proportionate policy responses.