Expansion in higher education during the 1990 s : effects on access and student quality

2 Australia's higher education sector has grown rapidly over the last decade or more, particularly since the higher education reforms of 1987, resulting in a major expansion in the number of student places and increased opportunities for participation in higher education. This paper analyses a number of key issues arising from this increase in the number of students undertaking studies at university in the 1990s. The paper first sets out the characteristics of this increase and then seeks to address the following key questions: • has access to university increased? • has there been any significant change in the length of study? and • has the academic quality of students enrolling changed over this period? The paper has two main parts. The first looks at the issues of access to university and the length of periods of study. It does this by taking a 'life-table' approach that exploits age-specific participation rates. The second part is concerned with whether the expansion of the system over the 1990s has affected the academic quality of students. A number of approaches are taken: • an examination of the relationship between tertiary entrance ranks and participation rates of various groups (the hypothesis being that high participation groups would have more students of lower ability; acceptance of that hypothesis would support the notion that academic standards decline as participation increases); • an analysis of changes in the distribution of characteristics of students, and whether the balance has moved toward or away from groups more likely to succeed academically; and • a comparison of the academic ability of higher education students from three cohorts from the Longitudinal Survey of Australian Youth. The main findings are: • for the period 1989 to 1997, the number of students (non-overseas) grew rapidly, but has subsequently levelled off; • access to university in terms of the proportion of a cohort going to university peaked in 1996; • there has been a significant increase in the duration of study over the decade; and • the evidence that the academic quality of students has declined over the decade is very weak. During the 1990s, there was a significant expansion in the number of students studying at Australian tertiary institutions arising from increased student targets funded by the Commonwealth government. The number of non-overseas students increased substantially over the period of 1989 to 1997 but remained relatively stable thereafter to 2000. Between 1989 and …