AU$2.2bn funding cut 'a cap on opportunity for all'

Universal access to public services and improved educational opportunity hinge on the reversal of a AU$2.2 billion cut to universities, the chair of Universities Australia said in a speech last Wednesday, writes Paul Karp for The Guardian.

At the National Press Club, Margaret Gardner, the vice-chancellor of Monash University, called on policy-makers to reverse the Coalition’s two-year freeze on the demand-driven system, and release research on the value of collaboration with business.

Universities Australia aims to increase pressure on the Turnbull government and Labor, which has opposed the cut, but so far declined to say whether it will reverse it. In the mid-year economic update, the Coalition unveiled a package of AU$2.2 billion in cuts, the centrepiece of which is an unlegislated freeze on the demand-driven system for university places, which Universities Australia has said will mean 9,500 places are unfunded in 2018.
Full report on The Guardian Australia site