ANU to bid for extra places for marginalised students

By Brianna Elliott

On 17 August, the Australian Government announced it will fund an extra 20,000 university student places. The Labor Party’s stated intention is to boost university attendance numbers from underrepresented groups and to target “areas of skill shortage”, including education, health, engineering, and technology. 

An ANU spokesperson commented that, “ANU is planning to apply for some of these places and is currently collecting the required data and preparing the application”. Reflecting on increasing the university’s diversity and students experiences and engagement with people from a variety of backgrounds, they further say, “our students are a key part of this”.

In August, the new Federal Education Minister Jason Clare, announced that universities will have the opportunity to apply for some of the allocated spaces to be granted to their institution through a bidding-like process. An Education Departmental spokesperson also confirmed to Observer that “[student] places will be allocated [to various universities] based on the outcomes of a competitive assessment process”.

Despite this, the ANU Indigenous Officer Katchmirr Russell commented that they “have not explicitly been contacted by the ANU regarding this grant”.

Russell  illustrated that marginalised and underrepresented students will be supported on-campus in addition to the government’s support, and that  “having more Indigenous students supported at ANU is always a good thing”. “If ANU is successful in gaining the extra places, they added, “it would be wonderful to have more students in our department”. 

During the federal election campaign, Labor stated their commitment to delivering the extra student places would include a $485.5 million investment to provide the additional university places. Labor also created three broad criteria points which universities must address in their applications. 

These criteria points include that the extra places must be given to students applying for degrees that have been listed as areas of national priority and skill shortages. The government has already implemented strategies to accommodate for the skill shortages through the Job-ready Graduate Package by reducing HECS or giving large discounts for students studying courses or degrees in STEM, while simultaneously increasing HECS for humanities and arts degrees. Universities must also target underrepresented groups who make up smaller percentages of student populations, and they must increase the ability to meet student demands of reducing overall university and degree costs. This means providing further financial assistance for low socioeconomic students. 

Despite the criteria universities must meet in their applications, there has been an increased concern amongst regional Australian universities about how fair the bidding process might be. Charles Sturt University’s Vice-Chancellor, Renee Leon, expressed her concern about the bidding process potentially favouring more privileged and wealthier universities, who could dominate the negotiations. The nature of this grant could therefore leave regional universities without the same ability to accommodate as many disadvantaged students. 

The Departmental spokesperson in response to Observer guarantees that universities will not gain these extra places on a basis of their wealth or privilege, and instead promises, “[they] will be based on merit in relation to each provider’s application”. 

University of Sydney has recently announced they are setting aside $25,000 for every disadvantaged student across the course of their degree. This measure is in addition to the federal grant. 

The application process for the extra student places closed on 19 September. Universities will be notified closer to the end of the year how many spots their institution has been granted.  

The BIPOC Department did not respond to Observer’s request for comment in time for publication.

Graphic by Will Novak 

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