Slightly O/T: Interesting Read on Socioeconomic Inequity in Aussie Higher Ed

I know this thread is probably somewhat off-topic since this is a discussion board about distance education, but I think some fellow members may find the article, which was published in The Australian, about the socioeconomic inequity of students at different Australian universities very interesting.

The online version can be accessed here at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25134346-12332,00.html

The findings do seem to be in line with a mini group research carried out by myself and some fellow students when we were doing our undergraduate studies at the University of South Australia a few years back, which the results actually indirectly highlighted some aspect of this socioeconomic inequity because even some comparatively well-off international students we interviewed said they partially decided against choosing the more well-known or Go8 universities due to the increasingly expensive fees as compared to those less well-known or less popular Australian universities.

I fully appreciate the fact that a lot of people view this matter as a simple market supply and demand issue, but I do think there are certain underlying facts that probably warrant more professional studies and research.

Regards.

 

This is not surprising. Prestige does not necessarily equate to quality, but may be more indicative of access to power and privilege. I also suspect that distance learning is heading more towards the regional university setting. These universities are more flexible in dealing with students and the quality is little different despite protestations to the contrary by some people.

Distance learners will show up in postcodes from the lower to middle
socioeconomic suburbs. Most of this student stream tends to be from people who are building a better life from the bottom up. It is no mistake that the University of Queensland cast off its distance education faculty some years ago. The reasoning was then that other universities were "better suited to it". There seems to be an attitude from the big eight universities that the less financial owe them for the privilege and they place obstacles and difficulties in the way, via bureaucracy.

The myth of social inclusion is destroyed by the operative social exclusion of bureaucracy. Entry for the less resourced becomes a participation in a steeple race on a wet track wearing lead boots. The more well resourced seem to step around this by connections and influence. They are becoming elite finishing schools and rites of passage to power in government and industry. This suits the university because of the access to power and influence.

This is not new. Oxford and Cambridge (Oxbridge) graduates filled the Judicial Appointments in the United Kingdom. It was no mistake that the Soviet Union Intelligence Agencies infiltrated these universities to subvert students in the 1930's. They achieved surprising results with Kim Philby and others. The Soviets knew that they were finishing schools for the elite and that the graduates would end up in positions of power, more because of influence than ability.

While the regional universities have to maintain quality there will be little difference in education product, but it does not mean there won't be in prestige. The big eight objected when the Colleges of Advance Education were allowed some twenty-five years ago to ascend to university status. Prior to that the degrees from these Colleges was not as prestigious as a university degree. The elites have been clawing back ever since.

The government in Australia will insist on good educational product from the regionals because of the billions of dollars they achieve in exports. Treasury strategists require that the quality is maintained. If you want a good Australian education, particularly in non research areas, and you wish to pay less then go to the regional universities. I doubt whether the prestige of the elites warrants the extra bucks from an offshore perspective.

 

There's another factor in play here. Consider this:

University of A is generally considered to be superior to Uinverstiy of B.

Student A attends U of A and receives only average grades with standard blah,blah references from instructors.

Student B attends U of B and receives superior grades and receives glowing references from instructors.

Which student would you choose to be?

 

Given there isn't a drastic difference in tuition - A. Superior name recognition is a great plus in and by itself, but it would probably also mean superior lecturers, superior exposure to newer methods of teaching/learning, technology and research, superior contacts. Less than wonderful grades would be easily attributable to stricter grading standards which would probably be true. References? Maybe a problem for someone who is just starting their career, those returning to the university would probably have enough professional references (it would also depend on the field of study/work probably)

However, when there is a drastic difference in prices, there has to be a point where the cost outweighs the benefit, especially when being financially constrained and living in an economy where there is weak guarantee of adequate employment and reasonably fast return on investment for the degree.

 

I don't see a problem here. It is a simple supply and demand issue. Market economics at work. When a school is deemed by some reputable authority to be a prestigious school, everybody and his dog will wonder if he/she is prestigious enough to get in. What happens then is that you get a number of applicants for admission that far exceeds the available seats for the students. As in any situation wherein demand exceeds supply, the natural result is that price goes up until it reaches that point where the demand (number of applicants for admission) is equal to supply (number of admissions slots available). To complain that there are not enough poor people at the priciest and most prestigious universities is like complaining that there are not enough poor people driving Porsches, Mercedeses, and BMWs.

 

Good read to kill some time, actually went through your post in an airline lounge

I have to concur with most of what you said here, I had done courses at the University of South Australia (UniSA), University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and the University of Adelaide before, some were for undergraduate studies while a few others were professional training programs, found the quality are about the same. In fact, I would rate my experiences with UniSA and UTS far better than what I went through at the University of Adelaide despite the fact that their fees were probably one of the highest.

 

I guess this depends on a lot of factors, personally I would pick Option B any day, especially in countries like Australia where the quality is about the same everywhere. However, when we carried out the mini research project at UniSA a few years ago, we interviewed a lot of overseas students studying in Adelaide, South Australia about the reasons behind their university choice, and surprisingly a lot of them chose the university simply based on some third-party foreign rankings despite the fact that the programs they selected are some of the "weakest" academic programs offered by the higher-ranking uni.

Regards.

 

That's very true, after I finished my Year 12 in Adelaide, I actually received offers from all three South Australian universities, the University of Adelaide, University of South Australia (UniSA) and Flidners University, but decided against the University of Adelaide due to its expensive fees and very theoretical-based teaching/learning, so the final choice was between the UniSA and Flinders University, but eventually picked UniSA since they offered the double degree program I was mostly interested in and it's school of marketing is very well-known in the business sector (at least in South Australia).

Regards.

 

As what I mentioned in the original thread, I understand and appreciate the "supply and demand" view on this issue, but it was still a surprise to myself and fellow mates in my study group at UniSA, we were really amazed by the number of international students deciding to make cross-institutional transfers from the Go8 (tend to be more expensive and well-known for overseas full-fee-paying students) to the less well-known unis and vice versa, and the reason beings were largely attributed to pricing, international ranking and name recognition while program contents and study suitability played much smaller or even insignificant roles. However, the trend was much much much less obvious amongst the domestic students in Australia.

Regards.

 

Hm, my sister lives in Adelaide and I know she did her Bachelor's in Australia, I'll have to remember to ask her where she went next time I speak to her.

I don't know about people from other countries, but where I live there is little name recognition of any Australian universities. That being said, the very fact that it is Australian would probably carry a decent amount of respect, so I guess the pricing would be key for enrollment.

On the other hand, I did my Bachelor's in Malaysia and over there it is a somewhat different situation, as some Australian universities do a lot of marketing for potential Malaysian students. Monash comes to mind, I believe they even have an actual campus in Malaysia.

 

Haha, it's a small world, Adelaide is a nice place, I still regard it as one of the best in Australia no matter how many people tell me it's too slow-paced and blah blah blah. I spent over 10 years in Adelaide, finished my secondary education, double-degree undergraduate program and worked for a few different employers (2 were full-time, the rest was part-time or casual during my uni time) there.

I know a lot of Aussie unis are very proactive with their marketing efforts in Asia, where they get the vast majority of their overseas students, not too sure about Monash, but UniSA used to and I believe it still does spend heaps on marketing to attract prospective Asian students. However, increasingly we see these Australian unis dedicating more and more resources on overseas partnerships (e.g. UniSA offers dozens of offshore programs with recognised unis in Asia, especially in Singapore and Hong Kong), but less on pure advertising etc.

Anyway, I still miss the good old days when I was at uni, definitely some of the best years in my life!

 

Small world indeed!

It seems Malaysians at least are learning from the Australians and some of their universities are now both openly marketing as far as Europe and opening campuses abroad. Limkokwing University comes to mind.

But there is something I wanted to say regarding Ted's supply&demand explanation. Frankly, I already wrote a comment but didn't dare post it as I am really no economist. However, I'll try - Ted's supply&demand explanation in terms of available seats works for B&M. But what about DL? Given a university has already invested in DL, and has the courses all set up and canned, isn't the marginal cost of enrolling additional student much less in DL than in B&M? Supply is not limited by the availability of physical space and other resources on campus, it is more of a function of hard-disk space, bandwidth, a new IT support technician for every x new students and a new adjunct for every y new students. What then justifies prices for DL sometimes being equal to, or even higher, than B&M classes? I simply don't understand how it's simply a limited supply issue. Then again, as I said, I'm no economist.

 

These guys seem to agree with me:

http://www.univ-ab.pt/pdf/news/panel_report.pdf

So in layman's terms.

Uni A has 2000 students willing to enroll in DL mode at price Pa = P(b&m)
Uni A has distance learning all set up and courses prepared
Uni A knows it can get 6000 additional less well-off DL students at the price Pb = Pa/2
Uni A can service all those students with a low marginal cost per each enrollment produced

Why isn't Uni A doing that?

 

OK - As for my supply & demand info and whether there would be any differences between B&M and DL, there would be some differences between the two situations but the law of supply and demand would still apply. Granted, with DL, one would not need to supply physical seats in classrooms or dormitory rooms (or apartments near campus) to warehouse your DL students the same way you would with B&M students; however, supply & demand would still apply in that you have only a certain number of professors each of whom can teach only a certain number of students. Therefore, greater demand for your program would still tend to push up the price, regardless of whether it's B&M or DL.

 

I'm unfamiliar with the Australian phrase 'Group of Eight'. Which Australian universities are included in the eight?

The Shanghai rankings look at things like the institutional affiliations of highly-cited and award-winning researchers. The emphasis is heavily on the sciences.

16 Australian universities appear among the top 500 universities in the world in this ranking:

1. Australian National U. #54 worldwide
2. U. Melbourne #78
3-5 U. Queensland 101-150
3-5 U. Sydney 101-150
3-5 U. West Australia 101-150
6. U. NSW 151-200
7-9 Macquarie U. 201-300
7-9 Monash U. 201-300
7-9 U. Adelaide 201-300
10-11 LaTrobe U. 301-400
10-11 U. Newcastle 301-400
12-16 Flinders U. 401-500
12-16 James Cook U. 401-500
12-16 Murdoch U. 401-500
12-16 U. New England 401-500
12-16 U. Tasmania 401-500

I think that Adelaide would score higher if the humanities were given more weight. (London's SOAS didn't even make Shanghai's top 500, despite being arguably the best place in the UK to study Asian philosophy.)

So... which of these do Australians themselves think of as the best, the most prominent, or whatever?

My clueless impressions from California are that Sydney has historically been the antipodean power in philosophy, with ANU moving up more recently to rival it. Adelaide has been another leader. In Buddhist philosophy in particular, ANU seems to be the strongest, with Tasmania showing signs of life. I get the impression that many Australian universities have strengths in particular specialty areas. (American universities are no different.) ANU is an international power in anthropology and very prominent in astronomy. Melbourne suggests medical sciences in my mind for some reason, while I associate James Cook with tropical marine biology.

So, I'm guessing that a short-list of leading Australian universities will vary considerably depending on what subject a student proposes to study, especially on the doctoral/research level.

 

Hi Bill,

FYI, the Group of Eight (Go8) includes the University of Sydney, University of Melbourne, University of Adelaide, University of Western Australia, University of Queensland, University of New South Wales, Australian National University and Monash University. More about the group is available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_of_Eight_(Australian_universities) and of course http://www.go8.edu.au as well.

The Go8 is often viewed as the most prestigious higher education alliance group in Australia and most members of the Go8 use the title "a member of the Group of Eight" heavily when it comes to international marketing efforts. In fact, it's so important that the Go8 decides to translate a lot of promotional materials into other languages such as Chinese etc. simply for brand building in overseas markets.

Of course, other Aussie unis don't want to be left behind, so several university alliances have been formed in Australia over the past decade or so, this includes the Australian Technology Network (ATN) [More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Technology_Network], Innovative Research Universities Australia (IRU Australia) [More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovative_Research_Universities_Australia_(IRU_Australia)] etc.

Hopefully this helps.

 

Hi Ted!

I believe this thread by Chip could be most interesting and related to what we are talking about here.

I believe we can safely say that the amount of actual teaching professors do in on-line courses varies depending on which distance learning program and university we are analyzing, and that it varies from substantial to almost none.

Let's take for example a program which I really like based on what I've read here and in other places - the Heriot Watt University Edinburgh Business School distance MBA.

Their materials are online, and there is (impressive I'd say) support group at their water-cooler site. From what I can see, it is mostly run by students, one notable exception being that some professors (at least one) take part in the discussion and provide most interesting and quite fun to read comments on the exam questions. But, if I am not mistaken, that's about it. For the rest you're on your own unless you decide to register at one of their learning partners, in which case you're probably paying substantially more money and it's not a requirement to finish the MBA anyway.

I've read many positive comments on the quality of this program, so quality should not be an issue here.

However, let's look at the numbers:

This is their faculty list, which I believe also includes those teaching in the full time program. I did a quick count and there is 63 or 64 names on that list.

http://www.ebsglobal.net/programmes/faculty-and-authors

Their total enrollment at this time is 7500 students. That's more than 100 students per professor, and to be honest, given that they already have their courses set up and the DL pathway is 99% self study, they could probably easily handle thousands more.

http://www.ebsglobal.net/who-we-are/history-and-experience

So in the case of a DL program structured similarly to the one at EBS, there really is a huge difference in terms of how limited the potential supply is.

Now let's examine my experiences with DL.

1)University Džemal Bijedić, Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Master's program
Blended. After the initial period of lectures on-campus (Saturdays), the interaction is almost exclusively via e-mail (research papers and such) or taking exams on-campus for a few courses. Materials are available on-line via the DL system they developed in-house. There is a vibrant support forum for DL students but is moderated by TAs, not professors. So aside from the 2-6 hours of overview lectures for each class and a 10-day residency for a data-mining class, professors do not do actual teaching. Their job is mostly providing help in choosing and approving the research topic for the papers, providing feedback on paper drafts, final paper evaluation and grading, and in a few cases administering and grading campus written and/or oral exams..

It is obvious that even in this case where there is close cooperation with the full-time faculty, their responsibilities and time-commitment for the DL program are much less than the typical full-time program, which would involve them coming to teach the class at least two times a week, being available for consultation on specified days, plus doing all that they are doing in the DL program. Obviously, with this reduced time-commitment they could probably easily handle 3-4 times more students if they didn't have additional on-campus teaching duties (which they do in this case).

2) UC Berkeley Extension graduate-level course. Taught by an industry expert who is as far as I can remember not full-time faculty at Berkeley. Very pleasant guy. However, the course is structured in a way that you read the online materials, do and submit your assignments and the final project for grading, and participate in the discussion board where the teacher also posts from time to time, but the discussion consists mostly of students posting the required number of posts as a requirement for passing the particular unit. Theoretically this could change with an inquisitive student but so far the lecturer mostly has to evaluate the content of the posts. Obviously, this is nowhere near the level of time-commitment a lecturer would have if teaching a full-time course.

3) Stanford professional development course. Though there are those which require teacher interaction, the one I'm taking (first of four in the IT Benchmarking series) features prepared video presentations, slides and some other materials, plus a short exam taken online. I could theoretically email the lecturer for additional info, but I wonder how many students would use this opportunity, and having to answer emails is nowhere near the commitment needed when teaching a full-time course.

4) A GIS course at Lund University. Fantastic materials, audio, video, slides, textbooks, interactive presentations, online quizzes. Great support forum with many students posting actual problems with the lectures and solutions. Obviously a lot of effort (and money) invested in creating the course. However, most of interaction is supposed to be submitting answers to theoretical and practical exercises and getting teacher feedback. Again, lecturer time commitment far below the necessary time commitment for full time course. So yes, they probably spent a lot developing the initial course, methodology, preparing lectures, exercises, data etc, but now they mostly grade and give feedback on the assignments and probably do upgrades and additions to the course material

5) An archaeology and history course from Umeå University, Sweden. Again, video, audio and text lectures already prepared. Access to their digital library for e-books and journal articles. In this case the lecturers are full-time profs and the one teaching the first part of the course does seem to go above and beyond the call of duty in facilitating the course and establishing communication, so I guess the time commitment on his part is higher.


So obviously we have varying types of DL. Ones with higher time-commitment required for the professors which would support your limited supply theory, and ones with very little or virtually no interaction required which would not.

When we take into consideration that at larger universities a lot of these tasks regarding interacting with students, grading papers etc can be given to TAs, adjuncts etc (less expensive to higher), it is clear that the time commitment for the actual full-time professors (which translates of course to how many you must hire to service every z new students) can be reduced even further. Isn't AMU/APU employing this strategy (correct me if I'm wrong)? And while the name recognition is not really there, they are accredited, offer an impressive array of some otherwise hard to find courses, and are substantially cheaper than many many other B&M DL programs.

 

OK. So we do have varying types of DL which are going to make for varying time committments on the part of the professor. But, regardless, the professor is going to have to grade papers and exams for his/her students (and possibly respond to discussion boards, handle telephone "office hours," etc.) You cannot assume that, merely because it is DL, a professor can handle an unlimited number of students.

 

Unlimited, probably not. Much higher, very likely, especially if we allow for some of the interaction and grading to be done by TAs, adjuncts etc.

This difference should show in lower tuition prices for DL, but often does not, and I suspect there are other issues at play.

Here is an example where it does. Durham Business School, triple business accreditation (AACSB, AMBA, EQUIS).

Full time MBA: £18,500
DL MBA: £12,235

And from what I can read in the description of their DL program, it is the high-interaction type. Plus they provide the textbooks and other goodies.

http://www.dur.ac.uk/dbs/degrees/mba/mba_dl/support/

 

There was a move to limit the government research funding to the major"8" universities and to reduce the research status for regional universities. The theory was that they would be able to teach to undergraduate status, with a few non technical Masters. I am nor sure how successful this was overall. There might be a rational economic base for this, but, with all the universities very similar in competency, one does get suspicious.

In the USA, I understand that there is little government money in the universities. This is not the case here. One does not mind what criteria the private universities put on their applicants for admission etc. Bond University is one university which very few locals would opt for because of the high cost. Most of its student base is from offshore. I do mind, however, when access is limited because of latent socioeconomic factors and it is taxpayer funded. Being exclusionary and taxpayer funded is inconsistent in my opinion.