Under the Bradley proposal, student contributions would be untouched but universities would face less control over what courses they offer.

Though there are reasons to put place and fee deregulation together, in higher education they have been separate issues.

Increased fees is not a sign of policy failure; in areas like childcare and higher education where there is historic under-investment it would be very surprising if they did not increase to finance the level of service demanded.

Each of your Sydney examples (MQ, UTS) offer programs that aren’t available at ‘prestige’ institutions and other programs that have been, at certain times, more difficult to get into than equivalent courses at USyd or UNSW. Furthermore, ‘prestige’ hides a multitude of sins, and sometimes those idiots in the middle classes can recognise as much and will make an informed decision.

I wasn’t aware that uni fees were capped, being an ordinary working stiff who reads about rises in Uni fees in the paper, so I assumed the insitutions had the power to increase them. How does that work? I oppose any kind of voucher system after experiencing vouchers-in-all-but-name with the child care system. Government gives parents money to “follow the child” (well, with a bit of a delay), providers raise their fees to allow for what the market can bear. Lather, rinse, repeat. Vouchers are a recipe for providers setting fees at a level way above the voucher amount.

I’m just saying that it isn’t the case that low prestige equals higher accessibility, especially in the cities (far from it). Most of the average/low prestige universities in the big cities are set up for middle class/rich kids that don’t get into the prestige universities (Macquarie, Swinburne and UTS being good examples — I was always impressed by the number of BMWs and flash cars in the MQ car park when I worked there many years ago — cars which most of the lower level staff couldn’t even think of affording). Even most of the country/small city universities are not exactly high on equity either, and no doubt will become even less so with further reform as they migrate to the bigger cities (like Deakin and that Queensland university that gets all the bad press did), and close down their smaller regional/outer suburban campuses as UWS, VUT, and La Trobe are doing. Thus the idea that having low prestige universities increases access to poor (versus academically poor) groups is incorrect — they’re basically providing a service to middle-class kids who haven’t done very well at school, quite unlike the general rhetoric.

Yet these campuses provide teachers, nurses, social workers and business graduates for the region as well as making higher ed possible for smart kids whose families are poor because of the drought.

Rather amusingly, I work at one of those fairly average universities with low accessibility, and strangely enough, our VC constantly talks about equity and helping low income groups, as does the VC from Maquarie, another university that doesn’t cater to that group at all. Perhaps it’s on their minds.

No doubt there’s a direct connection between low prestige and high accessibility that perhaps implies a practical conflict between some of the recommendations.