Public school students missing out on uni offers

PUBLIC school students are those most likely to miss out on a university education as competition for places intensifies.

PUBLIC school students are those most likely to miss out on a university education as competition for places intensifies.

More applications for fewer tertiary spots at Melbourne's prestigious universities have led to government school leavers and poor students being pushed out of the second-tier universities.

A Monash University study found the proportion of Melbourne state school students who received a university offer dropped from 54 per cent in 1996-97 to 47 per cent in 2003-04.

Researchers found entrance scores to Melbourne's least popular or most accessible institutions, such as Victoria and La Trobe universities, had risen over the past decade and left many students from government schools and financially disadvantaged areas out in the cold.

Researcher Daniel Edwards found scores that had allowed students to scrape into La Trobe and Victoria now were not enough to get in because of increased competition for places at all universities.

He called on the federal Government to increase the number of HECS places at Victorian universities to cope with the added demand and to ease the educational disadvantage placed on struggling students.

"The continuing erosion of opportunity for disadvantaged students in school education may mean that a desire to compete in such a tight market may wane, thus creating additional crises in relation to Australia's relatively low education participation rate," Mr Edwards said.

"Until governments (both state and federal) address the core issue of declining opportunity, the educational prospects of many disadvantaged students will not improve."

Higher education equity expert Richard James said responsibility for making sure students from a low socio-economic background and government schools had access to university went beyond the tertiary sector. "It is not just a university problem, it is one for the broader community and the school sector," Professor James said.

"The challenge for Australia is how do we lift school retention rates and school achievement for these people."

Professor James, based at the University of Melbourne, said the data also showed there was a decline in the number of students from a low socio-economic background getting into the prestigious Group of Eight universities.