Australia: Universities agree to publish ‘real’ ATARs

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May 31, 2016 – By Eryk Bagshaw

Australia’s most powerful universities have fallen into line over university admissions standards, recommending wholesale changes in the wake of a Fairfax Media investigation that brought the sector’s integrity into question.

In January, confidential data revealed that up to 60 per cent of students at some universities were being admitted below the advertised minimum requirements, forcing the federal government to direct the Higher Education Standards Panel to examine transparency in the sector.

On Tuesday, the Group of Eight universities endorsed the recommendation of the panel chair, the former secretary of Prime Minister and Cabinet Peter Shergold, to publish the lowest, median and maximum Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank for every university degree.

For the first time, the Go8, which represents Australia’s oldest universities including the University of Sydney and Melbourne University, has also suggested compelling universities to publish progression, pass and drop-out rates for courses on a nationally regulated website.

At present universities only advertise one ATAR cut-off and are not compelled to publish progression statistics, limiting their public accountability.

Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham voiced concerns over the lack of transparency in April as total HECS student debt looks set to blow out to $180 billion by 2026, according to the Parliamentary Budget Office. A record one million students will fill the nation’s lecture halls this year.

Last Friday, a new report from the Department of Education revealed that three times as many students were being admitted with ATARs below 50 compared to four years ago. The median rank of the more than 55,000 ATAR eligible students in NSW last year hovered around 70.

“The Go8 transparency principles and those set out by the panel are well aligned,” said Go8 chief executive Vicki Thompson.