Category: Participation and attainment

The higher education participation rate at age 19 almost certainly fell in 2023 – but an exact rate cannot be calculated

Andrew NortonLeave a comment

Despite significant policy interest in higher education attainment rates, the preceding participation rates are rarely reported. The most readily available time series is in Mapping Australian higher education, at figure 5 of the 2023 edition. It reports the participation rate at age 19 years, the modal university student age. For the first time in decades, the Department of Education recorded a participation rate in their recent 2023 statistics release.

Unfortunately data issues mean participation figures are only estimates. This post discusses these data problems and compares participation rates using two different methodologies. Both point to participation in 2023 being lower than in all recent years.

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Will the ‘Costello baby boom’ have a weaker demographic effect on higher education than expected?

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Since the late 2010s I have promoted the idea that the so-called ‘Costello baby boom’ cohorts will arrive at university age from the mid-2020s, increasing school leaver demand for higher education. As the chart below shows, annual births go from around 250,000 in the early 2000s to around 300,000 later in the decade.

Demographers are sceptical of how much effect mid-2000s pro-family policies had, but former Treasurer Peter Costello’s line that ‘if you can have children it’s a good thing to do – you should have one for the father, one for the mother and one for the country..’ was sufficiently memorable that this baby boom has his name attached to it.

As these cohorts approach university age this post takes another look at the data.

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Accord implementation proposals, part #2: The distribution of student places to universities and the folly of hard caps

Andrew NortonLeave a comment

An earlier post looked at the government’s plans for the Australian Tertiary Education Commission. This post examines the government’s proposals for setting the number of student places and distributing them between universities. This includes a hard institution-level cap on student places, so that universities would get zero funding for enrolments above their allocated level. This post explains why a hard cap is unnecessary and counter-productive.

Overall number of CSPs

The government will determine the total number of CSPs. For ‘fully funded’ places – places for which universities are paid both a Commonwealth and student contribution – this is similar to the current system of the government deciding on total CGS funding, other than the small demand driven system for Indigenous bachelor-degree students (which will be retained). However,

  • because universities will have flexibility in moving EFTSL between disciplines (discussed in a later post) the maximum dollar amount the government pays will be less predictable than now.
  • because of the first point and hard caps on student places at each university (discussed below) the maximum number of CSPs the system provides will be more predictable than now.

It is not clear whether ATEC will advise the government on the number of CSPs, as opposed to contextual factors such as demographics, demand, and skills needs.

And if ATEC does provide advice on system-level numbers, it is not clear whether this will be published or not. The consultation paper mentions the state of the sector report recommended by the Universities Accord final report, but this is framed as a ‘report on higher education outcomes’, not future higher education needs.

Former higher education commissions provided detailed public advice on likely student demand and the sector’s capacity to meet it. For an education minister there is a trade-off. Public and quality advice gives leverage in Cabinet when arguing for money and a semi-independent justification for the government’s overall policy direction. But if the minister does not get the money the sector, and opposition MPs, will use ATEC reports against the government.

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Did bachelor degree enrolments decline significantly between 2016 and 2022?

Andrew NortonLeave a comment

This is a post I started writing several months ago, before the Accord final report and other major higher education policy announcements pushed it aside. I have completed it as a companion to my census attainment post on data issues in higher education.

Late last year several media outlets, using data from the ABS Education and Work survey, reported declining bachelor degree enrolments. In November 2023, bachelor degree enrolments were said to be down 12 per cent between 2016 and 2022. Another newspaper rounded the drop to 13 per cent. In December 2023 bachelor degree enrolments were said to be at their lowest level since 2011.

This post explains why these media stories exaggerate enrolment decline. The most important reason is that Education and Work does not count offshore international students. But comparing Education and Work results with enrolment data shows that it typically undercounts onshore international students and overcounts domestic students, particularly those in bachelor degrees. It also has occasional rogue surveys that produce misleading comparison years.

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How reliable are Census educational attainment numbers?

Andrew NortonLeave a comment

I am a big user of ABS data, including for calculating educational participation and attainment rates. Recently I have been using Census longitudinal data, which links records from a 5% sample of the Australian Census between different Census dates.

Due to respondent inattention to questions, or mistakes by family members answering for others, I would expect some inconsistent answers between censuses. But inconsistency rates for education-related questions are alarmingly high.

For the highest year of school education the ABS-reported inconsistency rate between 2016 and 2021 was 6.8%. For highest non-school qualification the inconsistency rate was 8.9% – meaning that a lower highest education qualification was reported in 2021 than 2016.

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