Australia’s chief scientist, Alan Finkel, has defended Australia’s demand-driven university system and the oversupply of graduates, arguing that there is more to getting a degree than landing a job. From The Australian:
…the era of mass tertiary education has arrived… [But] our expectations have proven resistant. We seem to be amazed at outcomes that are simply the logical extension of the massification message we have embraced.
Consider, for example, the fall in minimum ATAR entry levels observed across institutions and courses. If we recruit more students, it is a mathematical certainty that we will accept students we would have turned away before. Why the surprise? It’s just the tenacity of the old expectations.
Then there is the current preoccupation with the growing number of graduates from professional degrees who cannot find linked professional roles.
Again, simple maths: in the mass education era we will have many more graduates competing for the specialist jobs…
So when graduates pivot from professional degrees into other worthy roles, why report it as a great revelation?…
It is time to recognise that it is not a failure to progress to a job that has no obvious link to one’s degree. In the mass education era, the capacity to pivot is probably the most reliable predictor of success…
Let’s abandon the historical expectation that degrees and careers should be tightly linked. Instead, let’s unchain our thinking and embrace the opportunities.
I acknowledge that higher learning offers benefits that go beyond just landing a well-paid job.
However, we cannot ignore the fact that the cost of a university degree is rising as its value is decreasing, nor that substantial public funding is being poured into university courses, causing a strain on the Federal Budget, on top of significant private funds (see next chart).
Does Australia really need so many people holding expensive degrees, often working in totally unrelated fields? How many doctors/lawyers/accountants/etc degrees should the taxpayer fund, considering that many graduates cannot find a placement in their field of study? And how much money should students spend on a university degree, considering there is minimal chance of getting a job in their relevant field?
The inconvenient truth is that Australia has created a system that generates far too many university graduates chasing too few jobs.
This was highlighted in no uncertain terms by the Department of Employment’s (DoE’s) latest skills shortages report, which showed there were a record 1 million domestic students enrolled in a bachelor degree:
However, bachelor degree graduate employment outcomes are falling and are at “historically low levels”:
Meanwhile, the one area where there are “skills shortages” – technicians and trades:
Are experiencing relatively few commencements and completions:
More broadly, the greater number of people that have a degree, the more this becomes a basic expectation for employers, leaving those without one further behind. Those that do obtain a degree are also experiencing a gradual diminution in their pay, with graduate starting salaries for bachelor degree graduates deteriorating steadily since the 1970s, commensurate with the rise in university participation.
A related side-effect is that employers in Australia no longer bother to recruit school leavers and train them up. Instead, they tend to recruit university graduates and then whinge when they don’t have the requisite skills. In the meantime, students are forgoing earnings while they study, while sinking tens-of-thousands of dollars of sunk costs into gaining their degree.
Something’s gotta give.
