Ian R. Dobson and Bob Birrell

In order to achieve a fair representation of all young Australians in the higher education system, the Australian Government has designated a number of equity categories. However, little progress has been made with the most important of these, that is people from low socio-economic-status backgrounds.

Equity policy for higher education had its start with the Government's Green¹ and White² papers, followed by the formal policy, outlined in A Fair Chance For All (AFCFA).³ The Green paper indicated that Australia's university student population should mirror the social make-up of the Australian population overall. To this end, the formal policy statement in AFCFA outlined six designated equity groups, which the government regarded as deserving assistance in order to ensure their fairer representation in the student body. These groups were:

a) Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders
b) People with disabilities
c) People from rural and isolated areas,
d) People from low socio-economic status (SES) areas
e) People from non-English speaking backgrounds (NESBs) and
f) Woman in non-traditional areas, and research.

Of all of these groups, the two which have received less focus than the others are people from rural and isolated areas, and people from low-SES backgrounds. It is harder to identify students falling in these two groups, because their designation is based on post codes rather than self-identification, as is the case with the other four designated groups. For rural and isolated students, postcodes have been identified by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) according to their distance from population centres and on population size. For SES groups, and 'low, middle and high' groupings are based on ABS Census data on the employment and education characteristics of the population in each Australian postcode. Students are regarded as deriving from the low-SES origin if they live in postcodes which are included in the lowest 25 per cent on these criteria. Those coming from the top 25 per cent of postcodes are defined as high-SES and the 50 per cent in between as middle-SES.

So far as entry into university is concerned, the rural and isolated groupings take no account of the existence of university campuses in regional areas, so students living in some regional areas might in fact be closer to university facilities than some urban students. This indicative shortcoming has been addressed recently by a team from the University of Queensland,⁴ who have sought to specifically identify the areas in Queensland which are remote and/or isolated from higher education institutions.

The access issue for students from NESB backgrounds, and of women in non-traditional areas (agriculture, architecture, business, engineering and science) seem to have been addressed. NESB students have greater representation among university populations than their presence in the overall population would suggest. Nevertheless, official policy, so far as this group is concerned, still fails to help many deserving students. The policy ceases to recognize a person as being of 'NESB' once they have lived in Australia for ten years. Policy makers have never examined the language-based subcategories of the NESB group, yet our previous analysis has revealed that there is a wide discrepancy between language groups.⁵ Also, many second-generation groups were under represented in Australian universities, yet these groups, too, are excluded from the policy net.⁶

Overall, women now dominate higher education enrolments. In 1997, 55.2 per cent of students were female and 44.8 per cent male. At the undergraduate level 55.6 per cent were female, at the higher degree by research 46.0 per cent were female and at the other postgraduate level 56.2 per cent were female. The presence of women has also increased substantially in all in non-traditional areas except for engineering. The benchmark set in AFCFA was that women's enrolments should make up at least 40 per cent in the non-traditional areas. As Table 1 indicates, this has occurred in business, science, agriculture and very nearly in architecture. In engineering, the total female enrolment is only 14 per cent, in line with the experience in most of the rest of the world. Women appear to show the same disinclination to enter this field as men do in entering education or nursing.

The equity group most under-represented in Australian universities is the low-SES group. The defined presence of this group in society is 25 per cent, yet it makes up less than 15 per cent of all university enrolments and just 17 per cent of commencing undergraduate students (see Table 2). It is also unrepresented by any focussed lobby, which stands it apart from all the other equity groups. Recent initiatives by the Department of Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (DEETYA) appear to be addressing the issue of socio-economic barriers to university entry (such as by their funding of the Western Report referred to above). However, the access of this group continues to lag well behind the other equity groups, in part due to the past focus on these groups.

To some extent, the geographic location of a university influences the number and proportion of its students likely to be drawn from low-SES areas. Table 2 demonstrates the wide range of low-SES students' presence in universities from seven per cent at Macquarie University to 35 per cent at the University of Newcastle. The universities offering access to the greatest proportions of low-SES students are rural institutions. These figures are taken from a data series produced by Monash University's Centre for Population and Urban Research. The Centre has analysed the distributions of all designated equity groups.⁷

The importance of family resources in students' access to university is confirmed by the distribution of universities' students according to their origin in private or government schools.⁸ Table 3 shows the 1997 distribution of commencing undergraduates by school type in Victoria.

Victoria's two largest universities, Monash and Melbourne, which have the highest proportions of private school students, have the lowest proportions of students whose home residences are located in a low-SES areas. The pattern is shown clearly when the situation is graphed. Figure 1 plots the proportions of low-SES students at larger Victorian universities (student population greater than 10,000), against the proportion of students coming from Catholic schools and from Other Independent schools. The linkage between high private school attendance and corresponding low proportions of students drawn from low-SES areas is strong.

Figure 1: Proportion of commencing undergraduates who attended private schools and who were drawn from low-SES areas, selected Victorian universities, 1997

The connection between this linkage and the advantages in university attendance bestowed by family financial resources is also clear. The Other Independent schools are primarily high fee schools, largely inaccessible to students without the backing of at least moderately wealthy parents.

From Figure 1, it would appear that the presence of students from Catholic schools has little influence on the distribution of low-SES students at each university. Each university had between 15 per cent and 20 per cent of its students drawn from Catholic schools. Many of these schools are in located in low-SES areas, thus accounting for this pattern. There are also some Catholic schools charging high fees, rendering them similar to the Other Independent category which are primarily high-fee schools.

CONCLUSION

The poor representation of students from low-SES areas is not new. Competition for entry is increasingly being shaped by parents financial resources in a context where students are being required to pay more of the costs of their education. The trend towards higher proportions of private school students amongst commencing undergraduates is one manifestation of this situation. Much more needs to be done if universities are to represent truly the socio-economic make-up of Australian society.

References
¹ Higher Education - A Policy Discussion Paper (The Green Paper), Australian Government Publishing Service (AGPS), Canberra, 1987
² Higher Education - A Policy Statement (The White Paper), AGPS, Canberra, 1988
³ National Board of Employment, Education and Training, A Fair Chance for All, Department of Employment, Education and Training (DEET), Canberra, 1990
⁴ J. Western, J. McMillan and D. Durrington, Differential Access to Higher Education: The Measurement of Socio-economic Status, Rurality and Isolation, Evaluations and Investigations Program, Higher Education Division, Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs (DEETYA), Canberra, 1988
⁵ B. Birrell, I. Dobson and V. Rapson, 'The participation of non-English-speaking-background persons in higher education, People and Place, vol. 4, no. 1, 1996, p. 49
⁶ ibid., p. 47
⁷ Centre for Population and Urban Research, Monash University, 'Equity Access Statistics, 1997'. This series is available for purchase. Enquiries: phone (03) 9905 2946
⁸ This point is developed in B. Birrell and I. R. Dobson, 'Equity implications of the new Youth Allowance legislation for higher education students', People and Place, vol. 6, no. 2, 1998, pp. 61-70.

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