Dear Sebastian,

I am an academic and I have been working in universities for 15 years. My career has coincided with budget cuts (in real terms) and ever increasing reliance on funds from the private sector. When I arrived at the Faculty I work in 12 years ago, 85% of our funding came from HECS places. Now 30% of our funding comes from HECS places and at the same time we have almost trebled in size.

In short, the vast majority of our funds come from (private) students choosing to pay fees for their education.

Partnerships with business for research projects are the norm, not the exception. The Australian Research Council Linkage Grant program emphasises industry links within research, which requires contributions by (often private) partners. Funded professorships are the norm in many universities.

The university's interrelationship with the private sector is quite richly textured, and certainly considerably greater than it was 15 years ago.

Go have another look.

Go get your self acquainted with Professor Goldberg at The Sydney Uni;
Then when you learn the Facts of Private/Public financing; be Horrified, be very Horrified; But you won't be surprised.
And where are the rest of the spineless Useless Idiot Intelligential informing the students and The Public of the Criminal Routing of Your Hard earn stolen Tax dollar used to line the pockets of certain levels of the elitist-phere; “Public and Private”.
Yes, it does put new meaning to the words of Public / Private Partnerships; it’s called a Death Nell maligned with absolution and intent to intellectualize Looting; Absolutely Brilliant Hegelian Idealisms, everyone else is so dummied down and amicably stupid, they are totally clueless , and don’t know what has happened.

A bit late now.

Sebastian
In championing the cause of UWS you have taken an unusual approach to developing the argument that uni's have difficulty private funds. In any graded system there will always be something/one at the bottom of the heap -98% is still the lowest when everything else rates at 99%.
Having spent 30 years at one of Aust. largest uni's I read your article with hope of learning that it had improved its game in the ten years since I left there. I'm still wondering how it, or for that of it, most Australian universities are fairing in the chase for private $$.
Universities faculties have always attracted particularly focused individuals. Any appointment of junior academic staff is made in recognition of the individuals academic standing, not of their entrepreneurial skills within the wider community, to which they have had very limited exposure.

Dear Skeptic,

You seem to post all over the place on education.

My personal and anecdotal experince should be an interesting counter to your economic-rationalist thinking.

I would not have received a Univesity education were today's (right wing people-as-production-units) thinking. I won a Commonwealth Scholarship (remeber them?) and went on to finish an engineering degree. So little was the pay, and so limited were the career prospects, I would still be paying off the HECS debt today !

We are mortgaging our futures (and that of our students) because the idealogically conservative politicians see a fast buck in education.

It is also a simple component of the conservative right: small government = user pays. You can't pay? F... Off!

Simple really.

I have seen the commercial Unicentre scene offshore, firsthad, and the situation is freightening. Oz universities go to bed with Asian entrepreneurs, with no knowledge of how Asian Management Systems operate. The offshore private provider milks operating capital, before the bottom line. Less than an ideal situation for an Oz uni partner. Hmmm? The mony is gone Professor VC! Distributed to dialect groups, developers and family friends.

Worse still, exemptions are given for offshore diploma of little worth towards degrees. This significantly reduces the assurance of quality of the Australian programmes.

Deans don't care: It is a dollars and numbers game. It is also bl**dy stupid, because the targeted students can't cut it with local their[offshore] unis, so, delivery and assessment is dumbed down. While the offshore unis wont recognise, these proprietary diplomas, the local universities and offical assurance agencies don't jump up-and-down, because Asian governments are trying to establsh education hubs [read Singapore; read Hong Hong].

Privatisation? One Singaporean purchased a UK IT accrediation body [when the UK governement privatised it]. It now can accredit it's own courses and gain prefessional student entry/accrediation into industry bodies, Cunning, ain't they?

But, if you are student... Why, study, if the answers to examination questions are on the admin office's "general drive", and leaked to students?

I personally wrote to Brendan Nelson before, UWS burnt two million dollars and the University of Newcastle scandal. DEST and the AVCC, did nothing. And see what happened. It is a disgrace. Both were warned.

The Minister doesn't care a bit. The AVCC is too busy feather bedding. Deans? ... Careerists... Don't go there...

What able students? What about concerned Educators? What about genuine researchers? Yes, where have the flowers gone? pass-over, a long time ago... And they [the captains of education] "franking, don't give a dam".

Forum did offer once for me to comment. When I do. It will be big time, multi-media. Sorry, Dr. Nelson.

Having historically been involved in a community service club in the Western suburbs, I can attest to the involvement local industry in local affairs.

Perhaps, one issue is how degrees are viewed by industry. The same as short-hand once was. A degree indicates perserveance, not necessarily knowledge important to the company. A major company will have more expertise in, say, new product development, an academic with no hand in practice. Once the student is on-board, the right-of-passage has past, and the employee is ready learn in the real world. UWS drifts into history, especially in school tie and networking culture [not an Almuni culture].

Moreover, too often unversities, see themselves, as rationers of degrees, rather than educators. Perhaps, that research student, who wanted $2K from School funds and was reused now earns more than a Dean, but the memory of how she was treated in the past lingers.One can reap what is sown.