Effects of the Budget on UOW students
President of the Wollongong Undergraduate Students’ Association has spoken out about the cuts to universities as part of the Budget 2014-15 and as regional students, UOW is set to be at a massive disadvantage.
Joe Hockey revealed that under the budget changes, course fees will now be uncapped and universities will have the green light to set their own tuition fees.
Graduates will also be faced with repaying their HECS HELP loans sooner and at a higher interest rate.
WUSA President, Mitchell Bresser, doesn’t see anything good coming from these cuts.
“Universities will be getting less money from the government, students will have an increase in fees, they’ll pay interest on their HEC loans and universities can charge whatever they want,” Bresser explains. “So I can’t see any positives in the slightest from these changes. Enrolments will go down.”
“As a regional university, students were already at a disadvantage in terms of infrastructure and lack of services available to us, so when you increase HECS debt, regional students are less likely to enrol in University.
University of Wollongong’s (UOW) Vice-Chancellor, Paul Wellings, spoke to UOWTV Multimedia to discuss the future of the university.
“I think inevitably what we’re going to see here is fees rising against virtually all courses delivered by all universities. I don’t think the University of Wollongong is in a unique position on that,” says Professor Wellings.
While the actual changes that UOW will face have yet to be revealed, Professor Wellings says that students can expect to see a lot of subtle changes over the next two to three years.
However, Professor Wellings is trying to keep students positive. “People shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that this is a really important moment in higher education in Australia,” he explains. “It’s not the end of the world.”
For many, university is a rite of passage and a place to go to further their education. UOW Chief Finance Officer, Damien Israel, assures students that the university won’t be hiking up prices for the sake of generating a higher surplus.
“It’s about providing content to students to support them in their studies rather than us looking at it and saying ‘Well here’s a good way to save a dollar,’” Israel says.
Most of these changes to tertiary education look set to come into effect in 2016, meaning current students will largely be unaffected, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t outraged.
With opinions mostly divided among leaders at UOW, Bresser believes that VC Wellings should take a firm stance on the issue.
“I just think the Vice Chancellor is sitting on the fence, trying to keep the peace,” Bresser says. “Either he thinks increases to fees are good or bad, it’s not hard.”
UOWTV Multimedia Reporter: Kathleen Ryan
Medical research fund one less bitter pill to swallow after budget news
Following news of a $1 billion medical research future fund included in the 2014-15 Budget, UOWTV Multimedia Reporter Aideen Weingarth takes a closer look at the Illawarra Health and Medical Research Institute’s headquarters.
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- Completed in 2010, and funded by UOW and the NSW Government, IHMRI’s $30m headquarters are state-of-the-art.
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- Around 200 full-time laboratory, clinical and population health researchers are based in the building, with a further 100 using the facilities on a regular basis.
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- As part of the 2014-15 Budget, the federal government will be creating a new medical research future fund.
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- The government expects the first dividend pay out to reach $20 million, and for that to increase to $1 billion by 2022-23.
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- The initial capital will come from the existing Health and Hospitals Fund, with additional money sourced from savings measures in the health portfolio.
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- According to www.budget.gov.au, “the Fund will facilitate Australia maintaining a world class medical research sector, with access to cutting edge innovation and clinical breakthroughs in our hospitals”
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- Research Assistant Tracey Berg investigates protein aggregation in the brains of mice at IHMRI.
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- In a speech during Question Time, Treasurer Joe Hockey stated his hopes that the Medical Research Future Fund would be instrumental in finding a cure for dementia, cancer and Alzheimer’s.
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- Mr Hockey also claimed that it would be “the biggest medical research endowment fund in the world within just six years, a fund that will underpin the health system of the future”
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- IHMRI conducts studies in medicine, health, science, engineering and education.
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- In collaboration with researchers from the University of Oxford, IMHRI recently harnessed the activity of naturally-occurring ‘chaperone’ proteins to inhibit protein aggregation, a process thought to underpin diseases such as Alzheimer’s Disease and other forms of dementia.
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- IMHRI is currently running an innovative new trial of a personalised health program, that has taken over a year to develop and test and aims to recruit 360 local residents aged between 25 and 54
UOWTV Multimedia Reporter: Aideen Weingarth
Let’s talk about HECS
HECS debt is a hot topic after changes in last week’s federal budget. UOWTV Multimedia reporter Michael DiFabrizio spoke to WUSA’s Mitchell Bresser about the implications for students.
UOWTV Multimedia Reporter: Michael DiFabrizio
Sydney student protests
Federal budget backlash continued today as students from UTS and USYD marched against the deregulation of University fees, funding cuts and the proposed two tiered education system, not dissimilar to the U.S. Students Eleanor Morley and Nicholas Robertson commented on their roles in the march and what the budget could mean for tertiary education.
UOWTV Multimedia Reporter: Amber Kinnear