A DECISION to freeze funding to universities was made without any consultation to MPs whose electorates could be affected, Member for Calare Andrew Gee says.
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Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham announced $2.2 billion worth of cuts by introducing measures on Tuesday including capping government-funded places to 2017 levels for the next two years.
In a statement, Mr Gee said he wanted “regional universities to flourish and not contract” and that had been one of his biggest motivations to push for the Murray-Darling Medical School.
“I’m disappointed and angry that this change was announced without any consultation with the government party room or MPs with electorates that are affected by it,” he said.
“I’ve spoken to Charles Sturt University and they’re in the process of crunching the numbers to work out what the bottom line financial impact is.
“Once we know, I’ll be working with CSU to raise it with the government to see what can be done to help them.”
CSU vice-chancellor Andrew Vann expects a “severe” impact for current and potential students and said it could result in the university shedding campuses.
“The cuts will turn students away from studying in our regions and goes against our mission and vision to provide job-ready graduates to support the professions in our regions,” he said.
“Capping student numbers will force the university to make tough decisions about where we invest for the future. With capped funding, we will certainly not be able to invest everywhere and perhaps not even retain all the sites we have."
With capped funding, we will certainly not be able to invest everywhere and perhaps not even retain all the sites we have.
- Andrew Vann
Peak body Universities Australia was highly critical of the government’s cuts, saying regional students and communities would be hit hardest, and Professor Vann agreed.
"These decisions have real impact on students, their parents, the local workforce on our campuses and our other regional stakeholders and partners,” he said.
Mr Gee was at the official opening of CSU’s engineering building in October, where he spoke of the importance of the university to western NSW.
“It doesn’t matter what faculty it is, dentistry, health services, it doesn’t matter, we know that a large proportion of CSU’s graduates actually end up in the country, living and working in the country, and building country communities,” he said.
Despite the setback, Professor Vann said CSU would “continue to meet the challenge of meeting the needs of our community” in a bid to ensure the “economic and social wellbeing of the region”.
