The federal government has labelled a furore over a leaked Council of Australian Governments paper on a possible federal TAFE takeover a “beat-up” and “old news”. The leaked draft details a plan in which funding and loan schemes would become income contingent. ...

Letting graduates raid superannuation to repay HELP loans is a bad idea, the Grattan Institute has warned. Liberal Senator Chris Back has urged the treasurer to allow graduates to use retirement savings to pay off their student debt. Back proposes letting ...

Quality over quantity is professor Brian Schmidt’s vision for the Australian National University. The Nobel Laureate and astrophysicist took the reins as vice-chancellor of ANU at the beginning of this year, promising to “take a great university and make it better”. For Schmidt, this ...

Refugees on temporary visas and about 29,000 asylum seekers may miss out on higher education because they are ineligible for government aid to help meet the substantial financial costs. To go to university, refugees on Temporary Protection Visas and asylum seekers must pay ...

The government’s innovation reforms will bring the shift in cultural mindset Australia needs, Universities Australia has said. The government’s innovation agenda, announced this week, contains a suite of schemes to incentivise commercialisation of university research. This includes reviewing the existing research ...

University students would no longer get a 10 per cent discount if they pre-pay their course fees under a new government proposal. A measure abolishing the discount is contained in a bill introduced to Parliament yesterday. Under existing arrangements, as explained by the government's ...

Torrens University Australia shouldn’t receive public funding, the Greens have argued. In legislation recently passed through Parliament , Torrens University Australia has been listed as a Table B provider – meaning it’s eligible for public research funding. The Greens attempted to ...

The Australian Research Council has reiterated that its grants aren’t based on gender. Next year, the ARC plans to implement a range of measures to close research’s gender gap. This includes improving gender balance on grant selection committees, investigating options ...

A pioneer in neuroscience credited with the critical discovery of brain stem cells 23 years ago fears a scarcity of funding could affect future breakthroughs. Professor Perry Bartlett, the founding director of the Queensland Brain Institute, lamented the fact that ...

TAFE Directors Australia has called on the government to urgently freeze funding to "high risk" vocational training providers and ban others amid the ongoing controversy surrounding the VET FEE-HELP scheme. In a statement issued on Monday morning, TDA chief executive Martin ...