Last year, The Australian revealed that drop-out rates for first year university students had hit an all-time high one-in-five, with the Grattan Institute’s higher education policy expert, Andrew Norton, claiming there was a correlation between drop-out rates and increasing enrolments, particularly among low-Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) students.
Then in June, the Higher Education Standards Panel released a discussion paper, which has found that 56% of students commencing bachelor degrees were admitted based on criteria other than their ATAR in 2015 – the highest proportion in a decade – and that average ATAR entrance scores have fallen considerably:
