The cost of the infrastructure required to meet the government's graduate expansion targets was being exaggerated, Education Investment Fund chairman Phil Clark said yesterday.
Tax reform is mere "tidying up" in comparison with the long-term pay-offs from serious investment in higher education, according to Universities Australia chief Glenn Withers.
The university sector faces an infrastructure funding gap of $10 billion-$15bn to meet the Rudd government's participation targets in the next 15 years, and there are now calls for an urgent re-examination of how the targets will be properly funded.
Universities Australia is pressuring the Rudd government to immediately boost higher education spending by $881 million and has warned that any large-scale expansion of the sector could jeopardise quality.
Victoria's universities have backed the Rudd government's growth agenda with a 13.5 per cent increase in first-round offers, offsetting a 9 per cent rise in applications. But the state government said too many students were still missing out, with 11,600 applicants now sweating on later-round offers.
Universities Australia has warned this year's big expansion of places is unsustainable and the sector will face a challenge to maintain quality and expand unless backed by additional teaching and infrastructure money.
* an overview of the higher education sector and its major achievements in 2008;
* an overview of the Review of Australian Higher Education (the Bradley Review) ;
* program descriptions and details of funding allocations under the Higher Education Support Act 2003; and
* an overview of program outcomes (including the allocation of places).
University students could be made to sit a generic skills test to assess what value has been added by their tutors as part of Education Minister Julia Gillard's plans to link university funding to performance targets from 2012.
