Gresham's Law in its simplest formulation states, "bad money drives out good"; more exactly it refers to coinage of metals of differing intrinsic value but having equal value as legal tender. Those made up of the cheaper metal will be used for payment, those made of the more valuable metal will tend to disappear from circulation.

The recent suggestions as to what will be contained in the Federal Government's realisation of the Minister for Education, Science and Training's proposals for revamping higher education may achieve a system analogous to Gresham's Law thereby cheapening the value of higher education throughout Australia and devaluing the Nation's international standing.

Because of its immediate effect on the population, particularly those about to enter university, the probability that universities will be able to set, within limits, the fees they wish to charge thereby further restricting matriculated students from a university education has gained prominence. The case has been forcefully put in a recent opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald by David Hughes, immediate past general secretary of the National Union of Students. But Mr. Hughes doesn't merely whinge about potential high fees.

"Perhaps the minister might like to spend a day in the life of a casual academic - being paid by the hour and trying to fit research and teaching around an ever increasing administrative workload that has arisen because universities can no longer afford as many non-academic staff. ...[he] turns a blind eye to the funding crisis that is slowly turning our education sector second-rate, and threatening Australia's knowledge base. The minister ignored a parliamentary review entitled Our Universities in Crisis, ignored alarming figures showing spiralling class sizes and dropping contact hours between academics and students, and chose instead to hold another review."

Now perhaps it's not a blind eye with which Dr. Nelson views the universities' funding short fall, but it certainly would appear to be a myopic one; so far no one has attempted a cost-benefit study of what such an approach will mean to universities. Is it unreasonable to suggest that compared to what even our most prestigious universities require to upgrade their staffs and infrastructure, the increase in available funding will be marginal? And that assumes there will be no further erosion of public funding for the higher education sector.

It may surprise many Australians that the recently released Productivity Commission report assessed  the contributions to higher education through private funding in the United States is 54%, in Australia it is shown to be 47% (including HECS) while Canada clocks in at 39%. In short, currently we are 7% behind the motherland of the private university in private funding and we will be encouraged to narrow the gap. [Incidentally, the British Government which is currently considering "top-up fees", gets 27% of higher education funding from private funds.

    Today, February 24, the ABC reports,

"[W]hile Education Minister Brendan Nelson has prepared plans to reform the higher education sector, [the Treasurer] Mr Costello says action in the Persian Gulf and a review of the defence force will be the top priority.
    " 'The first call on funds in this budget as you would expect will be in relation to our defence forces,' he said."

And if the decay of our university system weren't already sufficient, to bring the matter into stark relief we were told last week the placement of academics on individual workplace contracts as a condition of receiving Government funding was viewed sympathetically by Cabinet.

If any governmental approach to higher education were a guarantee to dissuade outstanding expat and foreign academics from taking up residents in Australian academe, or to persuade top class resident academics that overseas employment might be worthwhile investigating, surely this would be it. As an example of a Cabinet utterly out of touch with the requirements of Australia's knowledge infrastructure to achieve competitiveness with our cohort nations, it must rank near the very top.

Alex Reisner
The Funneled Web