Ben

You say: "We want our universities to be dynamic hubs of research, study and student activity."

You've been away too long. The glory days are over. Have been since they were corporatised, deregulated and defunded in the Howard era.

Melbourne Uni in particular has turned itself into a degree factory attracting the 'best and brightest' from the private VCE assembly lines . You can shoot a cannon down Tin Pan Alley and not hit a student skipping lectures - they're all at their casual full-time jobs.

Melbourne Uni sold its 2008 intake a pup. It let 1000 students into Law. Well not really, 1000 students were offered places at Melbourne University and upon completion of their undergraduate degree they can apply for 185 places in Master of Laws. They will be competing against students who completed B Laws at Monash, they will be ineligible to undertake further studies at Melbourne if they fail a subject and French is really easy to fail as the French department mark harshly.

So if you did well enough in year 12 to get into Law, Medicine, Economics at Monash or even Deakin why waste time and money at Melbourne where you will have to continue working as hard as you did in year 12 for the next 3 years of university. Studying at Melbourne effectively adds another 3 years at university to your degree so instead of entering the work force at age 22 or 22 you will be 25 before you earn a pay packet. The remuneration had better be worth the additional fees and lost earnings.

Its strange that Melbourne funnels all first years into Arts whilst slashing the numbers of departments in Arts.

I see Melbourne losing its local content and being populated with full fee students and students from rural high schools.