Are Australia’s universities under-funded?

Since the 1990s, it is said, Australian universities have become ever more under-funded and over-reliant on fee income. Internationally we seem to lag our peers, as governments short-change the sector, our students and society.
Some claim that in 2011 Australia’s public spending on universities “ranked thirty-third out of the thirty-four OECD member countries”. While governments across the OECD spent an average of 1.1% of their GDP, Australia spent just 0.7%. However the story is not so simple. More...