In general, I agree with Steven's analysis. Either we want a market in higher education or we don't. This report leaves us in a half way house - a bit like being half pregnant.

The other issue is how we get more disadvantaged and indigenous young people into higher education. At the moment, Western societies tend towards quotas and positive discrimination strategies to achieve this desirable and necessary goal. More likely to be succcessful, however, is a dramatic reformation of secondary education, including voucher based funding and parental choice. In addition, we should be building, in disadvantaged areas, selective entry schools and specialist schools in Science and Maths with direct links to University courses to cater for bright working class and indigenous young people.

We should also be looking at vocational education schools with direct links into the training system. The era of the comprehensive, government operated and controlled school is surely coming to an end.

Steven Shwartz starts from the premise that (a) the market is a good thing - where has he been these last dew weeks! - and (b) universities would be better if they were governed by market rules just like Coles - where is the evidence?

More of a market philosophy will mean the increased 'capture' of universities by the corporates a trend which we have already seen and which was highlighted by a report from the Australia Institute last year. Universities are about the production of and free distribution of knowledge; about scholarship; and about academic freedom, none of which is a commodity that can be traded on the market.

It is the current move to commodification of university education that is the problem not the solution. The existing attempts for example to apply market based performance indicators to universities does not work.

I think that the Bradley Report was written by some self seeking academics who say Australia needs to increase participation in higher education so we can be a skilled knowledge workforce. A fine motherhood statement so why are all the IT, finance jobs being offshored. Why do we import built trains and trams from Italy and France? We used to build them ourselves.
What jobs are available for Victorian girls who don't finish school? bakery perhaps.

What jobs are available for Arts and Law graduates?

There are many stories about the looming teacher shortage. A fortnight ago there were under 500 teaching vacancies advertised, if there is 5% unemployment Vic should have 5000 teaching vacancies. I have never seen anything like 800 vacancies advertised in The Age and online.

I agree with the VC's article. You might as well go all the way and let the free market rip.

My main concern is not the market but the ability of many unis and TAFE's to operate in a deregulated environment. Their organisational cultures are inward looking to the point of myopia. They are change adverse and conservative in the extreme.

While many CV's, led by Melb Uni, may want to readjust fees, I fear the real problem is that they'll yell 'charge' but the troops won't follow.

I personally like Schwartz's humour. So very different from the usual high PC, boring, bleatings of the AVCC crowd

"Who can argue with more university graduates?" i can.

it's exactly this kind of presumption of form over content which is now driving tertiary "education". the way universities have achieved more graduates is by dramatically lowering standards. it has turned VC's such as schwartz into pimps, and lecturers into whores.

until there is some genuine concern for whether students are actually learning anything, we'll be stuck with these insane pseudo-business models of education, with their insane pseudo-business quantifications of success.

Bushbasher makes a fair point. Bradley didn't talk much about content.

Here are a few facts. The boomers who went to uni in the 1970s didn't raise the GDP of the nation one iota. In fact, they were a cost. The main reason is that about 60 percent of them went in to the arts. (Now the cat is out of the bag). Now I'll get a heap of comments about the 'true value' of the arts from the dobby gilles set.

Since 1986 the numbers of students enrolled in the post secondary education sector had more than quadrupled and the amount of money owed in HECS debt is about $1 billion. That debt is an impost around their expenditure and savings.

Look, we don't need more pen pushers. We need more plumbers and carpenters. We need builders, stone masons. We need TAFE stuff not arts graduates.

There is no logical connection between saying we need more uni students and the skills crisis. We need more TAFE graduates.

Actually, what we need is about seven less unis and a whole lot more community colleges offering two year diplomas. Sounds like life before Dawkins doesn't it?

Does anyone really think the market can take 37 unis offering prettty much the same stuff?

The shape of things to come isn't mass education, it's with the private providers. I'd say Carnegie Mellon and Harvard know that, which is why the former is already here and the latter is considering a partnership.