This was published 1 year ago
School-leavers reject attending university from their bedrooms
By Mary Ward
Year 12 students applying for university do not want to learn from their bedrooms but are prioritising a vibrant campus life when picking their courses for next year.
The University Admissions Centre’s annual Student Lifestyle Report, published in full on Tuesday, found just 2 per cent of Australian students in their final year of high school wanted to attend university remotely.
The University of Sydney is among universities no longer offering remote unit options to undergraduates. Credit: Louise Kennerley
When asked about considerations influencing their university choice, 58 per cent of respondents said they sought “vibe and campus culture”, up from 45 per cent in 2022.
The survey of more than 14,000 students found their preferred study mode was classes held exclusively on-campus, as nominated by 60 per cent of respondents, the same number as in 2022. Thirty-eight per cent wanted a blended course model, with a combination of in-person and online classes.
Last week, federal Education Minister Jason Clare announced the first recommendations of the Universities Accord, an expert panel that Labor has asked to devise higher education reform.
The landmark review is expected to consider solutions to long-term challenges that face the sector, such as funding, research and student debt.
On Wednesday, the panel made five short-term recommendations ahead of its final report, which will be delivered at the end of the year.
Among them was a $66.9 million plan for 20 new regional and 14 suburban study hubs, bringing university campuses closer to people living in regional areas and the outer suburbs of major cities across the country.
The new hubs would be in addition to 34 regional study hubs, formerly known as regional university centres, operating across the country.
Since July 1, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency has required all international students to complete at least two-thirds of their study face-to-face, prompting some universities to overhaul their approach to remote learning, bringing students back to campus full-time for the first time since the pandemic.
The University of Sydney no longer offers remote units, except when the degree or unit is validated for online delivery and offered wholly online, and Australian National University will also cease to offer remote and mixed delivery units in semester two. The University of Melbourne’s undergraduate programs have been exclusively on-campus since the start of 2023.
For Vanessa Romagos, a year 12 student at Fairfield High School in Sydney’s south-west, the experience of learning from home during the city’s 2021 lockdown was one she would rather not repeat.
“It was really hard, having the motivation to do school work and not seeing your friends,” Romagos said.
She hopes to study psychology at the University of Sydney. While she would be interested in online lectures to save her commuting into the city for class each day, she wants to spend time on campus.
“Part of why I want to go to USyd is because their clubs are really well organised and really varied,” Romagos said, adding that she hoped to join the university student union’s Filipino, Anime and gaming societies.
Students in the centre survey reported rates of worry about major issues facing them as they leave high school akin to those the year before, including planning their future (a concern for 63 per cent of respondents), getting into uni (39 per cent of respondents) and their personal finances (44 per cent).
The one issue that students were considerably less concerned about was the pandemic: 39 per cent of last year’s survey group indicated they were concerned about “COVID”, compared with 4 per cent this year.
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