Group of Eight debates university entry level lift

[Stick]

What happens if the places for a course don't fill?

[Yeezus]

I am all for universities to be elite institutions and *not* intended for everyone.

Think we need a two tier system:

Universities
Technical College (Or something)

Definitely the standard of university student is far too low at the moment and the courses are too easy. Not much alternative though because you can only set the course as hard as the weakest student if you want everyone to pass and get the $$$.

[Lasercookie]

Think we need a two tier system:

Universities
Technical College (Or something)

We do have a system like that, Technical College = TAFE

What happens if the places for a course don't fill?

For most courses, I don't believe there'd be any issue if they don't fill. For some courses, there's no issue if there's only 20 people doing it. Take a look at http://www.vtac.edu.au/appstats/appstats-ug-2012.html, look up the latest data for all universities. For that page, I believe a single application is just if it appeared on someone's preference list (at any position), regardless of whether they're eligible for that course or not. This is just counting the number of offers handed out too, the actual number of people accepting those offers might be a tad bit smaller too.

You'll see there's double degrees where only 1 person has received an offer. There's courses where zero offers have been handed out. For the most part, it seems the degrees with slightly specialised criteria seems to be the ones that end up with a small number of applications and offers.

Why isn't this an issue? Because subjects is probably what you'd want to look at, not degrees. One subject would have people from a multitude of degrees in it. If a subject only has a small number of people doing it (1 or 2, something small at least), then it might not run. You might want to look at various university policy for those kind of situations.

[Yeezus]

We do have a system like that, Technical College = TAFE
For most courses, I don't believe there'd be any issue if they don't fill. For some courses, there's no issue if there's only 20 people doing it. Take a look at http://www.vtac.edu.au/appstats/appstats-ug-2012.html, look up the latest data for all universities. For that page, I believe a single application is just if it appeared on someone's preference list (at any position), regardless of whether they're eligible for that course or not. This is just counting the number of offers handed out too, the actual number of people accepting those offers might be a tad bit smaller too.

You'll see there's double degrees where only 1 person has received an offer. There's courses where zero offers have been handed out. For the most part, it seems the degrees with slightly specialised criteria seems to be the ones that end up with a small number of applications and offers.

Why isn't this an issue? Because subjects is probably what you'd want to look at, not degrees. One subject would have people from a multitude of degrees in it. If a subject only has a small number of people doing it (1 or 2, something small at least), then it might not run. You might want to look at various university policy for those kind of situations.

Don't believe that TAFEs are really analogous to a technical college as they have 'community colleges' in the U.S, from what I understand these are like 1-2 year degrees. TAFE is often a complete joke. Have at least 20 mates at TAFE and their assessment is astonishingly rigged to them passing.

[Professor Polonsky]

Community colleges provide alternative pathways into degrees at universities, usually.

[WonderBunny]

TAFEs do offer 1 and 2 year degrees. They just call them Cert. IVs and Diplomas. The CAE offers a 2 year Diploma in Liberal Arts, for example.

[Michelle94]

I am all for universities to be elite institutions and *not* intended for everyone.

AGREED!

[Yeezus]

TAFEs do offer 1 and 2 year degrees. They just call them Cert. IVs and Diplomas. The CAE offers a 2 year Diploma in Liberal Arts, for example.

Have various friends completing these things and they're a complete joke.

[thushan]

Okay Yeezus...sure that isn't a tad harsh? For starters I'm doing a Dip Lib Arts myself @ Monash.

[Yeezus]

Okay Yeezus...sure that isn't a tad harsh? For starters I'm doing a Dip Lib Arts myself @ Monash.

Wasn't talking about your diplomas offered at universities or even RMIT TAFE for that matter.

I just mean, I have a friend doing an associate diploma in engineering at some TAFE.

And in his assesment, they'll literally give him the code for the job, all he has to do is type it out, send it and he gets 100%. It's rigged so that he passes. In lieu of this, the students don't take the course seriously at all.

All I'm saying is that there doesn't exist an elite institution whereby you have to be the best of the best to get into.

Just because we have a system on paper that aims to do a two-tier system doesn't mean that in practise this is what's happening.

I am in favour of making Universities: Strictly for the top 20% of students
After that: Technical Colleges/Community Colleges

But, I'd probably like to make it so that most people get to attempt the degree.

So imo, the best system is not laxing the admission standards, but making the courses far tougher so that you really need to bust your ass to get into second year and onwards. I think this is roughly how the French do it. Basically, if we were to keep the current system as it is, but set the pass-mark for all subjects at 65, everything else unchanged, I think that'd be ideal.

[spectroscopy]

diplomas and certs at aussie tafes are NOT what community colleges in the US have
they give you associates degrees which are generally 2 years long, you do actual university level subjects like calc 1 and stuff, and then after the end of the second year, 99% of community colleges have transfer agreements with local colleges and you go into 3rd year then 4th (because of credit transfer), then graduating with an associates degree and a bachelors degree. Associates degree's at community colleges have really soft requirements to get in, as long as you have a high school diploma or G.E.D (high school equivalency) you get in to your local county one. They dont have any standardized 1 year courses like we have diplomas or Cert IV's

i personally think we SHOULD raise the university entrance requirements, and roll in the community college system (or at least have the same requirements for associate degrees here as the US does)

[WonderBunny]

If you complete the Diploma of Liberal Arts at the CAE you can transfer straight into second year uni. Only at, um, less good unis, though. The second year subjects in the diploma are meant to be university level subjects. Once again, though, only university level at the crappier unis.

[slothpomba]

These graphs are argument enough against a plan like this.





No matter what school they go to, public or private, no matter how hard they try as a cohort, if you rented the MCG and put low SES kids in one area and high SES kids in another area and then picked 10 out of the crowd, those 10 would likely do worse than the rich kids.

The whacked thing is that even before they start VCE, these kids are predisposed by their postcode and parental income to do worse on average than a rich kid. Before they crack open their first text book, put their batteries in their CAS or put a pencil to paper, their fate is already partially decided by their parents wealth.

Higher education is one of the best drivers of social mobility. Whilst there are some kids from low SES background who do score highly, the average kid is predisposed to not doing nearly as well. It's simply unfair.

IF they put adequate and robust SEAS mechanisms in place and perhaps a quota (monash has a 'target' in a similar way, which they failed to meet) for low SES kids then there is no objection.

[mark_alec]

The whacked thing is that even before they start VCE, these kids are predisposed by their postcode and parental income to do worse on average than a rich kid. Before they crack open their first text book, put their batteries in their CAS or put a pencil to paper, their fate is already partially decided by their parents wealth.

It is known that higher paid jobs generally require a higher level of education. It should come as no surprise that lots of students who do well have homes that are supportive and encouraging of scholarship.

Putting in a floor to stop universities lowering standards by lowering admission requirements doesn't have much to do with this, especially since said changes were proposed by the Go8 to lower costs in higher education so more can be spent at lower levels (Gonski etc.).

[Mao]

These graphs are argument enough against a plan like this.

(Image removed from quote.)

(Image removed from quote.)

No matter what school they go to, public or private, no matter how hard they try as a cohort, if you rented the MCG and put low SES kids in one area and high SES kids in another area and then picked 10 out of the crowd, those 10 would likely do worse than the rich kids.

The whacked thing is that even before they start VCE, these kids are predisposed by their postcode and parental income to do worse on average than a rich kid. Before they crack open their first text book, put their batteries in their CAS or put a pencil to paper, their fate is already partially decided by their parents wealth.

Higher education is one of the best drivers of social mobility. Whilst there are some kids from low SES background who do score highly, the average kid is predisposed to not doing nearly as well. It's simply unfair.

IF they put adequate and robust SEAS mechanisms in place and perhaps a quota (monash has a 'target' in a similar way, which they failed to meet) for low SES kids then there is no objection.

These graphs show that, on average, higher SES students tend to perform better academically. This is not grounds enough to reject raising the bar though, because:

1. The correlation between academic achievement and SES is not necessarily unnatural. We ought not to require the same academic outcome out of all SES classifications.

2. The outcome we ought to strive towards is "frictionless" social mobility. However, statistics of the average does not give information on dynamical measures such as social mobility. These graphs adds nothing towards this argument.