Academia becalmed : Australian tertiary education in the aftermath of expansion

Abstract

This book deals with the current crisis facing Australian tertiary education, especially universities and colleges of advanced education. Its message is simple. Tertiary education is becalmed in the sense that, after a long period of sustained and rapid expansion, it has now entered a period of no growth and decline. Student enrolments overall have levelled off, and in some fields and in some institutions have fallen alarmingly. As well, since 1976 financial support for universities and CAEs, which in past years kept pace with expansion, has been progressively cut in real terms by the Commonwealth Government. But in addition, tertiary education is becalmed in the sense that it has lost much of its wind, its energy and vitality. The end of the era of expansion came abruptly, and caught many academics and administrators by surprise. After coming to regard growth and sustained expansion as normal, they have found it both difficult and painful to adjust to the new situation in which universities and colleges of advanced education find themselves today. Further, this problem of adjustment to the {u2018}steady state{u2019} has been made more difficult by the oversupply of graduates in a number of fields, and by marked changes in public attitudes towards education and educational institutions.