Demand for humanities and law grow despite Morrison government fee hikes

Student demand for humanities and law courses at universities has grown, despite the Morrison government hiking fees.

Students at RMIT University in Melbourne. The economic downturn and the pandemic are driving students towards study.

Demand for university humanities and law courses is growing despite the Morrison government more than doubling course fees in a bid to redirect students to critical employment areas for the post-pandemic recovery.

But in a sign the government’s higher education reforms are working, the number of ­applications for priority courses — with new, lower study fees — in agriculture, health, science and education are booming.

Preliminary admissions data shows a 16 per cent jump in applications for university agriculture and environmental courses — where fees fell 59 per cent — and a similar rise in students wanting to enrol in health courses.

Management and commerce courses, where fees rose 28 per cent, had a 4.6 per cent slide in enrolments compared with the previous year, the figures show.

Andrew Norton, a researcher at the Australian National University’s Centre for Social ­Research, said while demand ­remained high for society and culture courses, the trend suggested “some positive signs for the government”.

“Some trends we see here — commerce and creative arts declining, health booming — have been the trend for some years,” he said. “It’s curious education is doing so well in appli­cations after struggling for some years.

Alan Tudge. Picture: Gary Ramage

“Society and culture is proving more resilient but it’s up 5.9 per cent when overall applications are up 7 per cent. So it’s losing some market share.”

The tertiary admissions figures, to be released on Monday, show enrolments in education — where fees fell 42 per cent — rose almost 10 per cent. However, enrolments also rose 5.9 per cent in society and culture courses despite average fees rising 113 per cent from $6804 to $14,500.

Education Minister Alan Tudge said the jump in appli­cations for agriculture, health and education showed the Jobready Graduates reforms were working. “Our intent was to encourage more students into courses where there was the best chance of getting a job,” he said.

“Students will ultimately make up their own minds about what to study, but we make no apologies for encouraging Australians to study in areas of ­expected job growth.”

The government is hoping to incentivise enrolments in priority courses by hiking the fees of other subjects, paying universities less to teach courses like law and communications and making it cheaper to study teaching, maths, nursing and science.

Several universities, which unsuccessfully tried to resist the reforms last year, still fear the new fee structure will not have an impact on enrolment decisions and instead saddle students with higher levels of post-study debt.

There also remain concerns by some higher education researchers that the new structure would also inadvertently push universities to enrol students in lower-­priority courses because they will receive higher student fees.

Under the previous structure, universities received $28,958 a year for science enrolments — $9698 from students through the HECS-HELPS loan scheme and $19,260 from the commonwealth.

Under the new structure, students will pay less — $7950 — but the commonwealth will also pay a lower $16,250, leaving the provider with $5118 less overall.

 

Despite these concerns, early figures show demand for architecture and building courses are up nearly 10 per cent, IT degree applications are up nearly 7 per cent, and interest in engineering and sciences courses has increased by nearly 3 per cent.

The figures are the first since the shake-up passed parliament last October. The funding changes, which were based on work conducted by Deloitte, were also designed to align the amount universities received to the cost of teaching those courses.

“Our Jobready Graduates package is a significant reform and provides up to 30,000 more opportunities for Australians to get a degree and get into a job in 2021,” Mr Tudge said on Sunday.

Mark Warburton, a senior fellow at the Centre for the Study of Higher Education, said the economic environment and the corona­virus pandemic were also significant factors driving students towards study. “We’ve got the pandemic and people aren’t going overseas, you’ve got a change in gap year patterns,” he said. “And there’s a depressed economic environment which traditionally sees university applications rise. Anybody who is trying to figure out the effect (on demand) of the government’s Jobready Graduates package at this point is jumping the gun.”

Andrew Norton. Picture: Aaron Francis

The University of Sydney separately said its most in-demand degrees for the first semester of the academic year were the master of commerce, bachelor of science and bachelor of arts.

A University of Sydney spokeswoman said it was too early to tell the effect of the new fee structure, but the university still held fears about the effect of the reforms on student welfare.

“Any potential changes could be related to a number of factors, and we’d need to examine student enrolment choices over a much longer period (at least two to three years) to be able to begin to establish a trend,” she said.

“We do remain concerned that the legislation could put some of Australia’s most vulnerable students off university study altogether — and that many could be saddled with significant debt if they pursue subjects they’re interested in.”

At the University of Melbourne, which offers only six undergraduate degrees, it was the arts, science and commerce degrees that were most popular.

The university’s bachelor of arts and bachelor of commerce are likely to attract courses with the highest student fees under the government reforms.

“The high number of applications shows that the community understands not just the benefits of higher education but also the joys that the pursuit of knowledge brings,” said University of Melbourne deputy vice-chancellor (academic) Gregory Kennedy.

The University of Queensland reported a rise in health, IT, education and law applications, partly driven, a spokeswoman said, by older applicants wanting to re-skill in the coronavirus recession.

First preferences from non-school leavers were 14 per cent higher than in the previous year, the university spokeswoman said.