STUDENTS across Hobsons Bay are finding it harder to get into university with an influx of high-income and top-scoring students increasing competition for tertiary places, a report has revealed.
The Victoria University study – conducted by St Albans-based education expert Professor Richard Teese – has found that students across the west are being squeezed out of post-secondary education because of rising fees and language barriers.
“People in western Melbourne continue to be less educated than other Victorians,” Vice Chancellor Liz Harman from Victoria University said.
“The challenges of low average income and a high proportion of non-English-speaking households in the region make it important that Victoria University serves the west exceptionally well.”
Victoria University has 12 campuses throughout the western suburbs and the fringe of Melbourne’s CBD and offers a variety of courses across the arts, human development, business, law, health engineering and sciences.
The university’s main campuses are located in Footscray and St Albans, while a large proportion of TAFE studies are conducted in Sunshine.
According to Prof Teese’s studies, which are still in a preliminary stage, an increase in students in the education system’s second achievement band has doubled, while students making Victoria University courses as their first preference have also increased.
The report also found that more first preferences are coming from higher-income families than when the university first opened its doors in 1991.
While Melbourne University still accepts the region’s highest achievers, demand for university places has caused a flow-on affect throughout the west and increased the level of results needed to gain a place.
As a result poorer families and students with lower secondary ENTER scores are finding it more difficult to qualify for tertiary places.
“Victoria University is caught in the middle of the tension between national policy, which is driving away the poor…and its institutional mission, which commits the university to promoting wider access to vocational and higher education,” Prof Harman said last week.
“The university could ride with the trend and simply allow entry standards to rise… this would allow the university to enjoy a higher social status.
“In doing so, it would desert its mission and this would have wide implications for the region and the state as a whole – the university will not do this,” she said.
Victoria University has commissioned a major project this year to investigate better ways to assist local communities across the western suburbs.
