I have complained repeatedly that Australia’s universities have turned into ‘degree factories’ since student numbers were uncapped in 2009, whereby universities teach as many students as possible to accumulate Commonwealth government funding through HELP/HECS debts. At the same time, quality of teaching, and students’ ability to secure subsequent employment, remain distant priorities.
Yesterday, The Australian’s Adam Creighton penned another excellent article questioning the explosion in university places, arguing that it represents a mis-allocation of resources that is bleeding both taxpayers and students alike for little more than a ‘signalling’ exercise:
A brilliant book by Bryan Caplan, an economics professor at George Mason University, in Virginia, argues that higher education has become an incredibly costly waste of time for the economy. For the individual, getting a degree is like bringing a stool to a rock concert to get a better view. It helps. But once everyone starts doing it you’re no better off and still have to fork out for the stool.
Hence the stupidity of successive Australian governments deliberately trying to push increasing numbers into university.
Sure, students with degrees earn more than those without them, but that has little to do with what they have actually learned at university. Anyone can sit in university lectures, for free, and binge on knowledge for as long as they want; but without the piece of paper at the end, it’s all, vocationally speaking, a waste of time.
Uni students typically rejoice when their teacher cancels class because their position hasn’t been affected relative to the other students. They’ll still get their personal, non-transferable signal, which they and taxpayers have paid thousands of dollars for, at the end…
Naturally, it’s in the interests of the education sector to talk up its value. Someone has to justify the $10 billion a year the government lavishes on universities and their small army of pro and deputy vice-chancellors on hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
Indeed, as alluded to by Creighton above, there is one lucky segment of society that has benefited greatly from the uncapping of university places, which led to a $2.8 billion taxpayer-funded bonanza for universities: vice chancellors.
As reported in The Conversation yesterday, Australian university vice chancellors have seen their salaries balloon, with the average salary package now approaching $1 million:
In some cases, vice-chancellors in Australia take home more in one week than a casual employee earns in a year…
Australia’s 38 public university vice-chancellors were paid an average $890,000 in 2016, and 12 earned more than $1 million.
The best paid vice-chancellor was Sydney University’s Professor Michael Spence, who received $1.4 million, after a 56 per cent increase over five years.
Professor Greg Craven at the Australian Catholic University followed on the heels of Spence, earning $1.25 million. Just behind Professor Craven was Professor Ian Jacobs at UNSW on $1.22 million.
The lowest remuneration went to vice-chancellors at Southern Cross ($500,000) and Murdoch universities ($585,000).
In addition to these lucrative salaries, many vice-chancellors draw performance-related bonuses.
By comparison, vice-chancellors at a number of prestigious UK universities earn considerably less.
The vice-chancellor of England’s prestigious Oxford University — which topped the Times Higher Education World University Rankings in 2018 — was paid 350,000 British pounds ($616,000), while the vice-chancellor at Cambridge University received 349,000 British pounds ($614,000) in 2016.
In fact, university bosses in Australia are among the highest paid in the world.
They also fare extremely well when compared to other public sector employees in Australia. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull earns less than all but one vice-chancellor, taking home around $527,000 annually.
Despite repeated federal budget cuts, job cuts and rising student fees, vice-chancellors’ salaries continue to grow…
Nice work if you can get it! Shame for the taxpayers and students that pick up the tab for this largesse. And pity for the growing army of graduates struggling to gain meaningful employment upon receiving their increasing useless degrees:
