Down Under or Upside Down? Higher-Education Reforms in Australia

By Guest Writer. The following is by Jamie Miller, an incoming postdoctoral fellow at the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies at Cornell University and a graduate of the University of Sydney.
It’s not news that higher education in the United States is in crisis. Student fees are out of control. Enrollment growth is slowing. Executive pay is skyrocketing. Faculty hiring and job security are plummeting. Nothing is working the way it is supposed to. Looking closely at the American system, the new government in Australia has decided on an overhaul of its own higher-education sector … by turning decisively towards the same marketization, competition, and “user pays” models it sees in the United States. More...