SUPRA has published a critique of the Melbourne Mode in the latest edition of Honi Soit. It raises standard points, such as income support, public transport concession cards and the exploitation of students for fee-income.
But most interestingly, it discusses USyd's SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats, coincidentally its acronym is a homophone of the acronym for Special Weapons and Tactics). USyd apparently thinks that it is already pretty good at offering graduate entry programmes and even has some initiatives in place to offset some of the problems of postgraduate study, such as access to income support.
The Melbourne Model seems to be receiving a somewhat icy reception in Australian Higher Ed. It is generally a feared thing in popular press and opinion thanks to its association with subject cuts, staff cuts and blatant money-grabbing. The only university that seems to be considering copying it is UWA and it is my estimation that they will be going for something subtly but significantly different.
Showing posts with label HECS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label HECS. Show all posts
Monday, September 1, 2008
SUPRA takes on the Melbourne Model
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Servicing Debt
The Age has run a story about a proposal for students to pay off their HECS debt by volunteering. It sounds, more or less, like a form of pseudo-employment. The article raises several reasons why it might not be such a good idea, including students need income support, students need money to pay living expenses etc.
Professor Chapman, who helped design HECS, in the article: "If you wanted to relieve the burden for students generally, it's got to be about income support while they're studying," he said. "That's far and away more important."
We should also note that students from lower SES backgrounds are more likely to defer HECS. This scheme would be just extracting more from the poor.
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