Melbourne Muddle: elite students turning away from law in droves
|
In 2008, Melbourne University, led by Kevin Rudd’s good friend, Glyn Davis, introduced an American-style model of undergraduate study, subsequently dubbed the Melbourne Model. At the time, students, staff and commentators criticised the move. Two years later, it appears that the Melbourne Model is being shunned by students, with The Age reporting last week that Melbourne University is now less popular than not only long-time rival Monash, but also RMIT and Deakin University. Information obtained exclusively by Crikey also confirms that elite students are turning away from the once-prestigious Melbourne University law school in droves. Under the Melbourne Model, undergraduate students are able to undertake 17 undergraduate courses — in 2007, students were able to choose from more than 90 different courses. When the Melbourne Model was introduced, many students expressed dismay at the restrictions on undertaking courses such as law or medicine at an undergraduate level. The ability to undertake the course of one’s choice was considered a preferred model than requiring students to first complete a generalist degree, which, in many cases, is unnecessary to their future vocation. Under the model adopted by other Australian universities, students still have the option to first complete a “generalist” degree should they choose — however, few take it up unless they fail to obtain a high enough entry score to make it into law or medicine in the first instance. This view appears to be substantially confirmed by the recent Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre preference data. According to VTAC, Melbourne’s long-time rival, Monash University, received 14,364 applications, RMIT more than 10,000 and Deakin 9978 compared with only 8372. Melbourne would contend that raw first-preference figures are misleading, because it offers far less courses (only 17) than its rivals. In that regard, Melbourne University’s provost, Professor John Dewar, told The Age that the data was actually an “endorsement of the Melbourne Model” given “first preferences for its six ‘new generation’ generalist degrees were up 3%.” Dewar failed to mention that demand for Monash and Deakin increased by 12% and 16% respectively. However, the true effect of the Melbourne Model is being seen in the huge spike in demand for Monash’s bachelor of law program (on the major courses no longer offered by Melbourne at an undergraduate level). From its inception in the early 1960s, Monash University was generally considered the less prestigious and favoured of the two institutions (Melbourne almost across the board had a higher ENTER requirement for most courses). As a result, while Monash arguably offered a more “practical” and less theoretical law degree, elite students tended to opt for Melbourne University because of its superior “brand”. However, thanks to Davis’ Melbourne Model, that notion has been turned upside down. In 2008, the year in which the Melbourne Model was introduced, Monash received an unprecedented 96.3% spike in “first preferences” for its undergraduate law program. This year, demand was up another 27%. Putting it simply — instead of choosing law at Melbourne, top students are heading in their droves to Monash. Overall, since the Melbourne Model was introduced, demand for Monash’s undergraduate law program (largely from elite students) has risen by more than 153%. (By contrast, Melbourne University spokesperson Christina Buckridge wrote in Crikey on November 9, 2009 that the “Melbourne Model’s … six courses (have witnessed) first preferences up 3%”. This does not compare especially well to Monash’s 153% increase. That is not to say Melbourne’s undergraduate courses are shunned, general commerce, arts and science degrees at Melbourne remain popular with students, however, it is the elite students, who prefer to undertake courses such as medicine or law at an undergraduate level, who have selected Monash, rather than Melbourne as their first preference. Speaking with Crikey, a Melbourne University spokesperson defended the Model, claiming that it offered students “more choice”. This appeared to be a somewhat confusing defence given that the Melbourne Model appears to specifically remove the most preferred option: undertaking courses such as law, medicine or dentistry at an undergraduate level. Some contend that the Melbourne Model is not about improving education, but rather about money. Under changes introduced by the federal government (the Prime Minister happens to be very good friends with the vice-chancellor of Melbourne University, with Davis chairing Kevin Rudd’s 2020 talkfest), universities are no longer able to charge “full fees” for local undergraduate students. Therefore, without the lucrative Melbourne Model, the university may have faced a substantial funding shortfall. By contrast, universities are still able to charge “full-fees” for half of its places in its postgraduate programs, like the Juris Doctor (the remaining half are offered on a Commonwealth-supported basis). This can make quite a substantial difference. Taking law, for example, under the “old” model, students were able to undertake a combined law/arts degree at a cost of approximately $45,000 over five years. This sum would be repaid after the student has started employment and earns above a threshold amount. Under the Melbourne Model, candidates are required to first undertake a three-year “generalist” arts degree (at a cost of approximately $15,000) and then scramble for one of the Commonwealth-supported places in the postgraduate law program. If they were unable to receive one of the Commonwealth-supported place, according to the Melbourne University website, the cost increases to $89,200. Not only is the cost higher, but the fees must be up-front (unless loans or some other kind of assistance is obtained) rather than after the student starts full-time employment. In addition, the Melbourne Model would require students to spend at least one extra year of study (six years, rather than five), delaying their entry into the work-force (which would probably represent an opportunity cost of more than $50,000). Cynics suggest that there was one other benefit from the Melbourne Model. That is, the extra revenue created by the Model allows for higher salaries for people such as Glyn Davis, who was paid $610,000 in 2007 but has seen his pay packet swell to approximately $800,000 this year. Disclosure: The writer completed a Bachelor of Law (Hons) and Bachelor of Commerce from Monash University and undertook postgraduate law studies at Boston College in the United States (which operates under a system similar to the Melbourne Model). |
|
|
|
29 Comments
It just doesn’t make sense for students who achieved high ENTER scores to then do 3 years of study where they have to have top marks again to get into law/medicine….it is just too much of a risk and why would you take it? It stressfull enough to do 2 years fo VCE for the ENTER score why would you choose to then be stressed out trying for top marks (ina coures you are not even really interested in) for a further 3 years ? The poeple that this model woudl be OK for I guess are those who dont get high enough scores out of VCE and try and get into law/med in a postgrad way.
I think there are a number of separate issues, here.
First, the Melbourne Model.
The strategic justification for the Melbourne Model is to position the University as something other than a certificate-generation factory. Unfavourable comparisons with undergraduate enrolments at Monash, RMIT and Deakin would appear, therefore, to be misguided. The Model is certainly driven by the funding squeeze felt by all Australian universities, but this, like the Model itself, pre-dates the election of the Rudd government.
Second, the purpose of university study.
“Unnecessary to their future vocation” is depressing language. On a narrowly vocational view (which I do not share), very few university subjects outside the disciplines of Accounting, Law, Medicine and Engineering would appear to be justified.
Third, executive salaries.
This seems to me by far the most substantial issue. The Vice-Chancellor’s package is paltry by Australian executive standards (if “standards” is the word to use), but is no less obscene for that, given that it doubles that of the Prime Minister (who has, whatever one thinks of him personally, the most important job in the country). Nor is Professor Davis’ package exceptional in the organization. The University of Melbourne happily devastates faculties such as Arts and the former VCA on the grounds that they need to run as profit centres while piling up layer upon layer of staggeringly expensive corporate overhead for faculties to support.
http://www.rodbeecham.com.au
Schwab makes a couple of mistakes.
First, most Melbourne undergraduate-entry law students used to take a double degree - in fact, it may have been required for some period. The change introduced by the Melbourne model was to have students complete their dual programs sequentially rather than concurrently.
As VIRTUALKAT says, the real question for prospective students is: why waste my parents’ fees on an elite private school and all my hard work to get a high tertiary entrance rank not to be guaranteed a place in law - undergraduate or graduate entry? So one possible solution is for the University of Melbourne to guarantee all applicants with a tertiary entrance rank of > 90 entry to law provided they complete their undergraduate program satisfactorily. I think the university may have introduced such a policy for the highest scoring students, but it needs to extended to more applicants to increase first preferences and cut-off scores.
Secondly, post graduate domestic full fee-paying students haven’t been required to pay their fees up front since 2002 when the government introduced a Hecs-like income contingent loan now called Fee-Help.
It has always been a good idea in principle to try and give students a broader education that goes beyond the narrow vocational subjects needed to get a job. The best lawyers are the ones that have a broader understanding of the social context in which the specialised world of law operates. The best accountants are those who know more than the content of the accounting standards.
The question is whether the vocational and the generalist studies should be taken in parallel (combined degree) or in sequence (MM). From an educational perspective either is fine.
But it looks as if students may be fixated on education as a means of getting a job only and want to get stuck into the vocational subjects from the outset. If Melbourne can’t sell the sequential model to the student market (and pariticularly to the top echelons of that market, which is what they target), then they may indeed have a problem.
I’m not sure that the data cited support the implicit hypothesis that the ‘Melbourne model’ has failed. My understanding is that there are now fewer undergraduate places on offer at Melbourne (this may be wrong). If there are fewer places, one would expect students to recognize this and there would be a commensurate reduction in applications. The question then becomes has the reduction in applications been greater than the reduction in places and had an impact on the average quality of accepted students. I’ve seen no prediction of that so far.
STEPHEN DUCKETT is correct of course, the correct measure of popularity is first preferences per place to be filled, while the correct measure of the attainment (‘quality’) of the intake is median entry score. I also agree that the precise data needed to calculate popularity hasn’t been published for 2010 entry, altho the Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre has published it for 2009 entry.
But I think this is rather premature. The University of Melbourne has introduced a big change which will take several years to test fully. If the university can hold its nerve it would be best to give the model a decade before making these kinds of summative judgements.
Don’t worry about the “Melbourne Model” - it appears students are voting against it with their feet, and that should cause Melbourne Uni to self-correct or go under.
There is something to be said for completing your undergraduate degree then law as a postgraduate degree. It allows students to focus on studies that broaden the mind, before undertaking vocational training (that’s if Law studies were better at combining the academic and vocational elements of training). Looking back, I think I’d have enjoyed this more.
The real issue for many students is fees - having to study for another year, risking not getting one of the Commonwealth funded places. They may or may not be the “elite” students referred to above.
And on the subject of Melbourne-Monash rivalry, I’ve been to both. They have a different culture - it’s a matter of preference. However, it was public knowledge in the 90s that Melbourne marked easier, so it was easier to get higher marks in Law and Arts faculties. But if all you want is the brand recognition, who cares?
JENNY, how on earth can it be ‘public knowledge’ that any university marks easier than any other? The whole difficulty with universities’ academic standards is that there is no publicly verifiable information upon which this judgement can be mde.
My nephew was in the first Melbourne Model Law intake. He was offered a place in Law at Melbourne and Monash.
He was dismayed to discover he would be competing aginst the other 1200 B A undergraduates for one of the 185 M Law places. He knew if he failed a subject he would not get a postgraduate place at Melbourne, he didn’t know that Monash B Juris graduates can compete for a Melbourne M Law place.
As part of first year under the Melbourne Model he didn’t mind studying Physics but the French department mark very severely.
Some real evidence to back Jenny’s claim would indeed be useful, however there’s always a large volume of anecdotal/hearsay evidence between friends that allows for subjective comparisons of marking standards from lecturer to lecturer as well as university to university. Thus she makes a fair point, but only with that caveat.
Going back to Rod’s comment, “Unnecessary to their future vocation” is indeed depressing language. Do we really want to our universities to be churning out narrow minded graduates with little or no understanding of anything in the world other than their specialist field? Even taking the vocational perspective as valid, should such a graduate opt to change careers they will not even have a basic grounding in anything alternative and thus their tertiary education would need to restart from scratch.
Point taken about law (and other specialist disciplines) needing wider horizons, but I thought that’s what arts-law and economics-law were for.
Well, here we are again: Dr Moodie, MichaelT, myself - the usual suspects!
MichaelT says that: “The best lawyers are the ones that have a broader understanding of the social context in which the specialised world of law operates. The best accountants are those who know more than the content of the accounting standards.” I would like to believe these statements, but I don’t. Nothing one is taught at university (or anywhere else) contributes in itself to social awareness or to character-formation: these attributes develop (if at all) individually in a multitude of ways and for a multitude of different and differently interconnecting reasons. I also think the argument that an expanded disciplinary awareness somehow makes one better at one’s chosen profession is spurious. Human awareness, not disciplinary knowledge, is what “rounds” a person, and it could be argued that the best lawyers and accountants - “best” in the sense of “most professionally effective” - are those who know and care about little beyond their chosen discipline, in which they are expert.
I think we need to be careful not to confuse disciplinary expertise with human character (i.e. 1 discipline = deficient character, >1 discipline = better character). The argument over the “breadth” requirement of the Melbourne Model seems often to assume this equation. It is false.
http://www.rodbeecham.com.au
“First shoot all the lawyers” seems a fairly sound policy to me.
A number of issues raised in the previous comments:
Double degrees were highly popular with both Australian and overseas fee-paying students because both degrees were of known worth, such as bachelor of economics/Law, or bachelor of Science/Law. The standards were not compromised. In the new Model, the generalist undergraduate degree has 25% of its content chosen from ‘breadth subjects’ that the current undergraduate students have described as dumbed-down time-wasters. Glyn Davis had to admit he was disappointed (with the student feedback?) even though these subjects were imposed, by him, on previously well-tuned courses. He blamed the staff.
Although not openly stated, the bachelor of biomedicine does not follow the Melbourne Model; it is a pre-med course. The med faculty beat Glyn on this one (which is why it is not publicly stated as pre-med). Some students in B.Biomed. with high TER scores have guaranteed entry into medicine. Law and engineering were not so lucky, but if they had been it would have made the public presentation of a comprehensive Melbourne Model - minus the faculties of medicine, law and engineering - look very silly. Actually, engineering was half-lucky, they managed to retain both courses - the old undergrad engineering and the new post-graduate model. This was at the cost of severe criticism by the Model proponents, and the financial costs of duplicating teaching. On the economic response program (ERP) statement, the finances of the faculty of engineering were described as critical.
If the model was purely to improve revenue stream, then the university cannot guarantee a large proportion of places in popular post-grad courses to undergraduates with high entry rank scores. The bean counters are depending on having half of the graduate entry students paying extremely high fees. They would of course prefer 100% paying fees! This was not possible in the undergrad degrees so the whole exercise is just to get around federal funding restrictions, and as RodBeecham rightly states, the money is needed to support the burgeoning levels of corporate styled-admin and overheads rather than teaching/academic staff. Melbourne Uni has become a degree factory, driven by fee-paying students.
It is all very sad to see. Australian higher education is caught in a trap largely due to decades of federal policies. If Kevin Rudd does not do something to improve the educational quality of our state universities then the slide downwards will continue. Singapore has put considerable resources into its universities over the last 10 years, and now has far better research facilities than here. China is doing the same. Despite warnings for many years by leading educationalists, the state and federal governments continue to deny there is a problem.
Re: Billie: “He was dismayed to discover he would be competing against the other 1200 B A undergraduates for one of the 185 M Law places.”
It is worse than this, he will be competing with everyone who applies - from Victoria, the other states, and from overseas. And you can bet that the fee-paying applicants will be most welcome.
The best lawyers I know are not just technicians. In addition to high-level legal knowledge, they are able to relate the technical legal issues to broader issues and strategy. In a given negotiation, for example, what are the objectives of the organisation? What does society in general require of the organisation? What legal means can be found to further these objectives and requirements?
This approach requires broad intellectual awareness and versatile thinking, as well as human awareness.
All of the above are what makes for the best legal minds. Study of the humanities or other generalist disciplines doesn’t necessarily bring any of this breadth of thinking about - but it can certainly contribute to it.
What is the most effective way of inculcating this breadth? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t rush to judgement without hearing some informed opinion.
Melb U as ‘degree factory’? Huh?
Historically, MU was known as ‘The Shop’!
At least the Davis ‘Melbourne Model’ acknowledges the possibility of an ‘educational’ outcome as well as meal ticket purchase.
I’m still very glad I did Arts (French Lang & Lit) before getting my hons Commerce (economics) meal ticket.
I would have been happier still if that second degree could have been earned at post-grad level.
I’d reckon most other ‘double-degree’ grads would agree with that.
Hold your nerve, Glyn! (Though you have stuffed up the VCA, so far.)
It is time to dispel the myth that the University of Melbourne’s financial problem, such as it is, is due to expensive administrators.
The University of Melbourne says on its web site that it has 21 ‘senior officers’. Assume they are each paid $1 million annually ($21 m). Assume that each senior officer has 3 support staff each paid $0.5 m ($31.5 m). So senior officers + support staff = $52.5 m annually.
This is only 4% of the University of Melbourne’s total revenue in 2007 of $1,429,020,000. Even if the cost of fat cats were doubled it would be only 8% of the university’s budget.
The sad fact is that the bosses of big corporations can expand their numbers and wages hugely and it makes an imperceptible difference to the corporation’s bottom line, while a modest percentage increase in the pay of the bulk of workers is a big cost to the corporation.
Re: Bill Cushing: “I’m still very glad I did Arts …before getting my hons Commerce (economics) meal ticket. I would have been happier still if that second degree could have been earned at post-grad level.”
Ah, but you got two, well-respected degrees. The first was not diluted by ‘breadth’ subjects whose worth has yet to be assessed (but student feedback judged them as very poor), and the second degree did not require competing for a HECs place (or paying extraordinary fees for the privilege of doing a post-graduate degree).
And I think the list of stuff-ups is longer than just the VCA, such as the MBS merger fiasco, the recent pattern of senior managers leaving (previous Arts dean, current law dean, previous Provost, Liz Baré), academic staff cuts (due to financial mismanagement), and others can add to this list if they like.
Gavin: regarding your point about highly paid senior admin positions. I always took a broader view about the choices where the money is spent, which included admin amongst many others, such as new buildings, consultants, advertising, etc.. There is a very insightful commentary at:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/07/29/melbourne-universitys-endowment-woes/
Here, Prudence (comment #7) analyses the University of Melbourne’s finances from 1999-2008, based on the published reports of the University. Some of these figures that are relevant to Gavin’s comment are quoted below, and show the scale of the problem is not simply the numbers of admin staff and their salaries, although they are definitely part of the problem, as RodBeecham points out.
PRUDENCE:
“Before I begin, for a little perspective, the Reserve Bank of Australia inflation calculator says CPI rises from 1999 to 2008 was 34%.
* In 1999 investment income was $21M out of total revenues of $614M, just over 3% — hardly substantive 10 years ago.
* By 2008 total revenues had grown by 133% to over $1.4Billion
* Student load had grown by 24%
* Equity was up 84%, from $1.7B to $3.16B (yes thats Billions)
* growth in executive salaries of 160% versus ordinary staff rise of 82%;
* “contracted and professional services” from unlisted in 1999 to a sum of over $71.3M (over a third the sum of general staff salaries!!);
* a 1600% increase in consultants fees itemised;
* staff costs in 1999 were 55% of expenses, and shrunk to 50% in 2008, whilst “other expenses”, some of which listed above, grew from 31% to 36%.”
My concern about the Melbourne Model (specifically the postgraduate law degree) is that it will turn the Law Faculty into even more of a corporate-lawyer -production-line than it was when I was there in the late 90s/early 00s. The rigour of the degree meant that all graduates were extremely well trained in how to think, how to solve problems, how to argue a point. These skills are obviously suited to practice as a solicitor, but they are also very valuable in a non-legal setting.
By making law post-grad only, Melbourne Uni will, I think, turn away many people who do not want to become solicitors, but who want to benefit from the intellectual difficulty of the degree. Talented people who may be more interested in the less well-paying world of public service, NGOs, and international organisations will often not choose an expensive postgrad degree, even if it would have provided excellent training, and society will lose because of that. Law Faculties must exist for more than just generating corporate lawyers. Good luck to Monash in filling this breach.
I agree with Dr Moodie that it is premature to talk about “success” or “failure” in relation to the Melbourne Model. My unease with the terms of the debate is due to what I take to be its underlying assumption: “Get the degree structure right and students will be equipped for life.” I think life - and people - are more nuanced than this instrumentalist view would suggest.
I would be very unhappy to see any “publicly verifiable” information purporting to indicate the academic standards of universities, simply because “academic standards” cannot be represented numerically. Any attempt to do so would shift attention away from teaching and learning and towards things such as staff-student ratios, ENTER scores, graduate destinations, socio-economic profiles of the student cohort, and so on. Such things are of interest, but there is no direct correlation between them and academic standards at all.
MichaelT and I appear to be at cross purposes. I would have thought that any lawyer would be thinking of the client’s objectives in a negotiation. What society in general requires of the organization is reflected in the statute-book and in case law. Is the suggestion that a specialist Law degree is incompatible with “broad intellectual awareness and versatile thinking”? I don’t follow.
No one - certainly neither Perspective nor myself - has suggested that Melbourne University’s financial problem is due to “expensive administrators.” We have both argued that the financial problem is due to the reductions in Commonwealth funding since 1989. Our objection is to the proportional increase in administrative staff numbers and reduction in academic staff numbers that has occurred since then. Nor is the problem confined to highly paid individuals resident in the Raymond Priestley Building. Every academic Department has acquired a manager, undergraduate and postgraduate co-ordinators, and a variety of other permanent administrators who suddenly became necessary after 1989. This, in turn, has resulted in more documented processes and procedures, more meetings, more committees, more approval channels, more forms to fill out, more reports - and the problem is magnified by a simultaneous drive towards centralization, which means that more and more routine activities have to be referred to central administration. The budget doesn’t reveal this: activity-based costing would.
The major financial consequence is to force up the cost of offering an individual subject to cover increased overhead. Simultaneously devolving authority to individual subject co-ordinators and cutting executive salaries would fix the University’s problems almost overnight. Reducing the Vice-Chancellor’s package from $800K to $300K, for example, would release funds sufficient to provide five subjects in the School of Production at the VCA.
http://www.rodbeecham.com.au
It is no good quoting % increases such as an increase in consultants’ fees of 1600% since even with this big % increase payments to consultants were still only $7.9 m or 0.52% of the University of Melbourne’s total expenditure in 2008.
Universities should allocate a minimum of 9% of their revenue to capital expenditure. You may disagree with a university’s capital priorities, but to under spend on capital expansion and replacement is to accumulate problems for the future.
We can all trawl thru statements of accounts to find expenditures which we think are wasteful. But as irksome as these may be, they still amount to only a few % of total expenditure. Even if you halved expenditure on administration it would still mean only an extra 5% to 10% funding for faculties, depending on how one defines ‘administration’.
While this would be useful additional funding, it would go nowhere near solving the financial problems of the Victorian College of the Arts or the Faculty of Arts. They need to concentrate on solving their budget problems rather than diverting attention to what they claim to be wrong priorities in central admin.
One form of publicly verifiable information on academic standards would be an external exam in each program, such as the exams that universities impose on schools for the purposes of university entry. In law I suggest an external exam in Australian constitutional law.
It is inapproporiate to allocate to just 1 faculty all the savings from a cut in expenditure on central administration which is imposed by a levy on all faculties and at least in theory is meant to serve all faculties. The Victorian College of Arts’ share of a saving 0f $0.5m in central admininstration would be trivial.
The real problem in the Melbourne Model is that women and poorer students will be denied access to good undergraduate courses. Women do not have the time (biological clock) to waste time on dumbed down courses. Most Australian students have had an excellent secondary education (unlike most US students) and they are ready for comprehensive courses in the area they wish to study.
To restrict the choice to 17 subjects seems extraordinary. And physics for students who probably didn’t study it at school means the whole course must be dumbed down.
Real science students will suffer in this case.
The sooner Melbourne reverses these decisions the better — and not just for students of law and medicine.
Not sure I followed all the comment submissions here. Simply to offer this personal experience:
I would have preferred to do science and law sequentially mainly because it was a real mind bender jumping from one discipline to the other - specifically the flexible conceptions of good versus bad law, distinct from relatively solid rules of science (Karl Popper views of subjectivity aside).
At that time in 1983 there were 3 students at ANU in my year starting combined science law. It was a slog. The subject I most enjoyed at law school was Theory of Law as in Jurisprudence which was about origins, philosophy, social constructs, deceits bias and venality of the law. But what is most shocking is that 95% of the other students in their final year doing this subject HATED it. What’s the point they would moan.
I think I liked it even better after that. A bunch of privileged child adults.
As for the objective of well rounded? Don’t mix up emotional development with intellectual awareness. A simple example - everyone knows not to crash your car. Being in a serious car crash means (I imagine) never forgetting the danger. Same with a lawyer advising a client who is sailing close to the wind, mortgaged to the hilt. Send them bankrupt litigating on their behalf, or tell them to negotiate a dignified deal? A student lawyer who’s done it hard will go the second most times, saving legal fees, time, emotional energy etc of all concerned.
Another anecdote about corporate lawyers: CBD partner takes protege around his harbouside mansion and confides in him/her - if you work 16 hour days for 5 years including every weekend, push your partner to the line of divorce, then I [not the protege] can have another mansion just like this. That’s life in a corporate law firm in my experience. A snake pit.
I am sure Melbourne is not interested in undergraduate students. I think it wants to be a purely postgraduate university but perhaps government regulation stipulates that it must have 1200? undergraduates or perhaps Australian society expects universities to provide undergraduate places.
As a postgraduate student at Melbourne University, I’m not too sure the university is all that keen on postgrad students either.
I know they like making money, and perpetuating their own existence, with everything else a distant second.
But that’s too be expected.
There are so many perverse interactions between the old degrees and the Melbourne Model degrees that are not to the benefit of postgraduates. I’m sure many postgrad students think they will be better off making a fresh start somewhere else.
If it were physically possible I think I’d rather study at Monash as well.
There is no explicit requirement for Australian universities to offer undergraduate programs, altho such a requirement might be implied from the university’s Act. If any university announced an intention to relinquish undergraduate programs it would ‘surprise’ both the Australian and Victorian governments which would ‘discuss’ the proposal with the university. I think the University of Melbourne, like many other Australian universities, wishes to increase its proportion of postgraduate students, including postgraduate research candidates.