Qn about the no. of places in uni courses this year.

[Greatness]

So i heard from one of my teachers that the government arent restricting the number of students/places unis are allowed to have per course now. For example each uni can decide how many students they want to accept for particular courses. And if this happens all of the clearly ins/cut offs for the courses will change...
Does anyone know if this is true?

[Souljette_93]

Haven't really heard of anything like that, but I know that the clearly in cut offs are based on the demand for the course, so if more people want a particular course, the higher the cut off.

[rustic_metal]

Doubt it. Melbourne would be completely farked with its 6 or so undergrad courses, while monash would be laughing all the way to the bank with its several million.

[_avO]

I remember reading an article late last year/start of this year about the gov removing the cap on the supply of gov funded uni placements but I can't find it atm :/

[slothpomba]

They will remove hard caps on places eventually.

I'm not sure much past there to be honest.

I'm think there would be a lot of little footnotes and things here and there.

If they removed the cap, why would they need to set an atar limit?

This would really screw over certain programs at certain unis (rmit,swinburne,VU) because if they can do Bsc at melbourne or monash, why do it there?

I think there still is going to be some kind of control.

Also, consider, a uni can only carry so many students. There can only be so many tutorial rooms or 1st year chemistry labs, ect available at one time.

The 2nd post here might be worth a read - http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1307614

I think they're just moving to a model where the funding follows the student to make the funding more fair for universities.

Like at monash they told us at the start of the year, they were slightly over-enrolled the guy was like "We hope the government decides to pay for you all.....". If funding followed every student, that really wouldn't be a problem.

I don't think abolishing entry requirements would do much good though. I mean sure people who did really bad in highschool could make a huge turn around but most of the time they'll just continue their old habbits (We are all a little guilty of this) and crumble if the course is too hard or just pass. If you want the university to have a quality, prestigious name, you can't let a lot students who don't know their stuff graduate. Employers will notice...

It kind of cheapens a monash degree or a melbourne degree if they let anyone in or almost everyone has one. I think they'll still create some kind of mechanism to control who goes where.

[Greatness]

Ahhk thanks guys
I was wondering what would happen if this were to happen cos it seemed too good to be true!
Yeah it makes sense that there would still be caps for certain courses esp health sciences.

[Mao]

So i heard from one of my teachers that the government arent restricting the number of students/places unis are allowed to have per course now. For example each uni can decide how many students they want to accept for particular courses. And if this happens all of the clearly ins/cut offs for the courses will change...
Does anyone know if this is true?

Hasn't it always been like that?

[Greatness]

So i heard from one of my teachers that the government arent restricting the number of students/places unis are allowed to have per course now. For example each uni can decide how many students they want to accept for particular courses. And if this happens all of the clearly ins/cut offs for the courses will change...
Does anyone know if this is true?

Hasn't it always been like that?

lol i have no idea thats why i was asking you guys

[rustic_metal]

Oh, aren't. Whoops, thought you said 'are.'

[waldo777]

So i heard from one of my teachers that the government arent restricting the number of students/places unis are allowed to have per course now. For example each uni can decide how many students they want to accept for particular courses. And if this happens all of the clearly ins/cut offs for the courses will change...
Does anyone know if this is true?

Yes, the basis of this is completely accurate. It's all related to the Commonwealth's targets for a greater percentage of students to have tertiary qualifications by 2020.

From what I can tell, it will slightly increase the supply of places at all universities. This should marginally reduce the clearly-in ATAR requirements at most institutions in 2012. However, as previously mentioned, the top universities such as Melbourne and Monash are unlikely to compromise the standards of their courses by allowing a huge influx of students with less potential for academic success. Consequently, the reduction in the clearly-in ATAR requirements at Melbourne and Monash will probably be very small as the supply won't have increased that much. 

[Gloamglozer]

From what I can tell, it will slightly increase the supply of places at all universities. This should marginally reduce the clearly-in ATAR requirements at most institutions in 2012.

But you've ignored that fact that an increase in supply could just be to combat increase in demand so after that, you're back at equilibrium and overall, little or no change in the Clearly-In ATAR.

However, as previously mentioned, the top universities such as Melbourne and Monash are unlikely to compromise the standards of their courses by allowing a huge influx of students with less potential for academic success. Consequently, the reduction in the clearly-in ATAR requirements at Melbourne and Monash will probably be very small as the supply won't have increased that much.

True to some degree but I might have to point out that the Clearly-In for the B.Sci at UoM for 2009 VTAC applicants was 89.05.  Following that, they decided to increase¹ the number of places available because they believed that that Clearly-In was excluding a lot of worthy and capable students.

So higher Clearly-In does not necessarily mean "the best" or "better" for the university in their eyes.

¹http://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/futurestudents/2010/09/22/bachelor-of-science-more-places-in-2011/

[slothpomba]

I think he was more alluding to the fact they wont drastically drop.

Like i doubt melbourne Bsc would ever dip below 80, all things being as they are now.