Slow road to fee deregulation and privatisation
by BEN ETHERINGTON THE AUSTRALIAN MAY 11, 2016 12:00AM
After six months of consultation, Education Minister Simon Birmingham has presented the higher education sector with an options paper. It is a small-target policy platform that looks set to return the discussion of higher education to the usual sector lobbyists, think-tank experts and education department commentators.
"At its heart, it was not a question of fees, but of whether university funding should be centred on the public good of higher learning or the fiction of the rational student consumer."