Editorial 27 March 2002

Despite the leader of the New South Wales Opposition being threatened with imminent oblivion, inquiries into what might be termed "Immersiongate", aspersions flung at a justice of the High Court from within the Parliamentary ramparts and questions regarding the fitness of the individual holding the office of Governor-General to do so, the matter of the parlous state of Australia's university system actually surfaced, though just a tad above the waterline, in the Sydney Morning Herald's secondary editorial yesterday (March 26^th), "Elite vision for universities".

The Federal Minister for Education, Science and Training, Dr. Brendan Nelson was being quoted modifying a comment he has made previously that he wants to see in Australia one or two universities of the calibre of Harvard. According to the SMH, "...he envisages significant private funding to elevate at least two universities to 'world-class' standard over the next 20 to 30 years." The vague term of "world class" is not defined -- the "envisioned" time scale of a full generation disquieting.  And crucially,  the comment suggests that the Federal Government does not consider that it has a responsibility to resource such an elevation.
    Mind you according to Tom Allard's Sydney Morning Herald article of January 22^nd Dr. Nelson opined that inflexible funding was hampering the development of a "world-class" university along the lines of Harvard suggesting that flexible funding has now been specified as being private funding. In short, Dr Nelson seems to be telling the universities that he doesn't care where they get additional funding to upgrade their bereft institutions as long as it isn't from the Department of Education, Science and Training.

The SMH editorial goes on to point out that there is next to no likelihood of private sector philanthropy being made available of the likes of the A$13 billion - A$36 billion available to Yale, Princeton, Stanford and Harvard and then adds, "Australia's ability to sustain world-class universities will always be constrained by its relatively small population and economy... [t]he bottom line, however, is money. The 'elite' university vision should not divert attention from the May federal Budget, which holds the answers to the more immediate questions about future funding levels for the tertiary education sector."

[Note in passing: Switzerland, pop. 7.3 million, GDP, US$207 billion - at least one "world class" public university (ETH); Australia, pop. 19.4 million, GDP, US$446 billion, no "world class" universities.]

There are several points that appear worthy of mention when matters of the funding of our tertiary institutions are debated.

1. The Association of American Universities (AAU) defines itself as "an association of 63 leading research universities in the United States and Canada".

2. Contrary to common belief in Australia not all North American leading research universities are private institutions with extravagant endowments. The two Canadian schools, McGill University and the University of Toronto, are public institutions. Of the 61 US universities, 34 are public, 27 private.

3. To list a few of the US public institutions: Indiana University; University of Colorado, Boulder; University of Nebraska-Lincoln; University of California, Berkeley. And it is noteworthy that the state of California, population 35 million, numbers 6 public universities in the AAU's group of 63. It also contributes three private institutions to the group. True, California is a very rich state, but is it that much richer than Australia? And to those who point out that it has a federal government to defend its borders, etc. Californians pay their federal taxes just like everyone else, they're not freeloading.

4. The SMH's editorial continues by pointing out, "Last year, Australia ranked only 20^th out of 28 industrialised countries in educational attainment levels of people aged between 25 and 34. The proportion of funding for public universities met by the Federal Government has fallen from 90 per cent to 50 per cent over two decades." This agrees with the finding there is an expanding discrepancy between Australian's average weekly earnings and the government operating grant for universities.

5. And while the Government continues to sacrifice the nation's intellectual health, countries ranging from India, Russia, Ireland, Finland and even Iceland, pop. 280,000, GDP, US$6.85 billion are allocating increasing percentages of their GDP to research and development, including increasing components for fundamental research, far above the resources being allocated here.

6. The current "scandals" preoccupying us and our leaders will go and others will come to take their place, but the legacy of the disintegration of our tertiary institutions will become a crushing burden for our children and their children unless a miraculous sense of urgency dramatically appears to take hold of our leaders. Paul Keating's grim forecast of a banana republic may be casting a closing shadow more rapidly than we'd like to believe.

Alex Reisner
The Funneled Web