Universities lose 10 per cent of funding for ag science degrees

The Federal Government has slashed fees for students studying agricultural science degrees, but has short-changed universities – leaving them facing a $3444 shortfall on every student.

Fee cuts: Science students’ fees will be cut from next year, but so will university revenue, under federal reforms.

A 60 per cent cut in agricultural science degree fees has not been offset by the Federal Government, leaving the nations’ universities facing a $3444 shortfall on every student they enrol.

The true impact of Federal Education Minister Dan Tehan’s tertiary fee reforms announced last month are only now coming to light, as universities struggle to understand whether enrolments in agriculture, maths, engineering and other science degrees will rise or fall.

For universities offering agricultural science courses – La Trobe, Melbourne, Sydney and Queensland – it means student fees will drop from $9698 to $3700.

But that $5998 shortfall will not be fully offset by the Federal Government, which is only raising its annual contribution by $2554 per agriculture student, from $24,446 to $27,000.

Universities are already suffering an $8.8 billion slump in overseas student revenue, due to COVID-19 border lockdowns, making further cutbacks even more challenging.

Australian Council of Deans of Agriculture president Tony Gendall said it sounded good from a student’s perspective, “given you come out of your degree with a much lower HECS (Higher Education Contribution Scheme) debt”.

But Dr Gendall, who is also head of La Trobe University’s Department of Animal, Plant and Soil Sciences, said experience showed cuts to student fees “don’t make much difference to school leavers.

“From La Trobe’s perspective we would welcome more students, (but) going backwards on a per student basis is not a good thing”.

“There’s some economies of scale taking on a few extra students. (But) I think it might be a disincentive for some universities.”

Agricultural science degree enrolments hit a low in 2010, before a steady recovery to 2015, with numbers stabilising at about 1300 first-year enrolments since then.

Analysis by University of Melbourne higher education researcher Ian Marshman said the 10 per cent cut in total revenue per agricultural science student could be offset if enrolments could be boosted to deliver economies of scale.

But Associate Professor Marshman said getting more students into agriculture depended on government and industry working together to promote the sector as a great place to build a career.

He said the Federal Government would save $769 million as a result of the reforms, some of which it was putting back into assisting rural and regional students overcome hurdles to university study.

In announcing the reforms Mr Tehan said the Federal Government would introduce a new one-off tertiary access payment of $5000 for about 8160 rural and regional students in 2021, who must relocate to undertake full-time, higher-level tertiary education.

The payment will be available for school leavers from an outer-regional, remote or very remote area enrolled in a Certificate IV or above qualification who relocate more than 90 minutes from their home.

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