Covid relief measures ‘made little difference’ in Australia

A major lifeline extended to universities during the pandemic did not end up costing the Australian government a cent, and a funding overhaul rolled out in the middle of the crisis, partly to free up more university places, did not generate an increase in student numbers.

A Senate estimates committee has heard that some key reforms and assistance measures offered to the university sector during its darkest days made very little material difference. No institution avoided incurring losses as a result of the government’s April 2020 pledge to “guarantee” funding at 2019 levels, as a cornerstone of what was hailed at the time as an “A$18 billion [£9.8 billion] relief package”.

The guarantee proved redundant, with no university suffering a net decline in its domestic student numbers in 2020. “Overall enrolments were sustained through the year,” education department first assistant secretary Dom English confirmed.

He said that the measure had done its job by providing universities with certainty. “I would argue all institutions took advantage of the guarantee,” he told the hearing. “No [other] sector in the economy enjoyed a guarantee of more than 50 per cent of their revenue last year.

“We were very clear, at the time the guarantee was offered, it was affirming the forward estimates as they stood, regardless of enrolments.”

The committee also heard that the government’s promise of 39,000 new university places by 2023, a key sales pitch for last year’s Job-ready Graduates (JRG) reforms, had not so far delivered any net increase in student numbers. In fact, the number of students accepting university places fell slightly this year, according to a recently released report.

The committee heard that an extra 15,000 students had attracted teaching subsidies because of the reforms. But this had only partly offset the national tally of some 20,000 unsubsidised students – a hangover from the government’s surprise capping of subsidies in late 2017, when most universities opted to honour enrolment commitments they had already made and wear the cost of unfunded students.

Moreover, the average value of teaching subsidies has declined because of the JRG reforms. “Why do you call them extra places when, in effect, there are no extra places appearing?” Labor senator Louise Pratt asked.

“They aren’t in fact an increase on the number of current enrolments. They’re an increase in the number of current enrolments that receive subsidies. And the subsidy attached to those enrolments has changed radically.”

Mr English said that the JRG promise had referred to the “implied places” that could be funded under the reform package. “But that means very little to commencing students if they don’t get an offer,” Ms Pratt countered.

Mr English bristled at suggestions that the government had left the sector high and dry. He pointed out that an extra A$1 billion had been handed to universities to help protect their research workforce.

“There’s an explicit guarantee this year that universities will receive the funding committed in their funding agreements, while they transition through the new resourcing arrangements for the JRG programme,” he said. “To say that nothing has been done to support the sector through a challenging moment is difficult to accept.”

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com