Universities Australia Says Federal Operating Grants Per Student Have Decreased by 1.6% Since 2008. (January 30, 2013)

On December 8, 2011 Dr Jane Lomax-Smith, Chair of the Base Funding Review Panel, presented Senator Chris Evans with the Higher Education Base Funding Review final report of some 200 pages, dated October 2011.

The report outlines 13 "enduring principles to underpin base funding" (pages xvii-xviii) and makes 29 recommendations (pages xix-xxiii).

And now almost 14 months since Senator Evans, Leader of the Government in the Senate, Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research was officially given the report we have the government's response:

Given the record investment in recurrent and capital funding for our universities made by this government, there will be no further general increase in base funding at this stage.

The great challenge for universities over the next few years will be to ensure that the significant additional funding from the government does not make them complacent about the actions they need to take to constrain costs and look for ways to be more efficient.

The full response of the government to the review's 29 recommendations is available HERE.

Julie Hare in today's Australian writes a stinging rebuke:

Julia Gillard [in 2009] said the problems affecting the higher education sector were compounded by, among other things, "allocation of resources to institutions that has been at best opaque, and at worst has been politically determined".

Four years on, that is exactly what we still have.

It's not all about the 10 per cent increase in funding that both Denise Bradley and Jane Lomax-Smith recommended. It's not just that funding for teaching doesn't cover the costs. It's not just that much needed reform to funding structures was missed.

It's that Monday's response to Lomax-Smith's considered and politically astute report was cynical and lazy at best.

A hectoring tone blamed the unis - it's about efficiency, waste, controlling costs and not being complacent.

Ms Hare also rebuked the government's obfuscatory approach to the university sector:

The government used, to justify its position, a mostly discredited report by Ernst & Young commissioned by the government last year while it considered its response to the base funding review. That report found the government had already delivered between a 7 per cent and 10 per cent increase in per-student funding since 2008.

But the UA analysis shows Ernst & Young had to include funding designated for research and equity programs - funding streams that are traditionally not in the definition of base funding.

Since then, there have been cuts or delays to those programs: more than $1 billion from research and another $300 million from equity and student support which the government did not factor into its rationale.

It is also noteworthy that the federal opposition has had nothing to say regarding the government's response. In short, as an election issue it's a non-starter.