University student finances in 2012 - A study of the financial circumstances of domestic and international students in Australia’s universities
9. The financial circumstances of International students
The inclusion of international students in the Universities Australia Student Finances Survey for the first time in 2012 helps to provide a more comprehensive view of the circumstances of the full range of students in Australian universities. A caveat, however: we report on international students and their views and experiences of education in Australia as a single cohort, for our focus is at the national (Australian) level. In reality of course, international students are not an homogenous group. Students’ financial experiences of study in Australia are dependent upon on their country of origin (Table 9.1), the source of their funding for study (for example, whether their scholarships or other support are in home country currency or Australian based) and the rates of exchange between their home country and Australia, quite apart from their familial or personal financial wellbeing. That said, some overall conclusions can be drawn:
- International undergraduates have slightly higher incomes than their domestic counterparts. The mean annual income for international undergraduates is some five per cent higher than that of domestic undergraduates. Postgraduate coursework students’ and higher degree research students’ reported mean annual income, however, is lower than that of domestic students – by 11.4 per cent in the case of postgraduate course students, and 14.6 per cent in the case of research students;
- Students from developing countries with fluctuating currencies or countries that have unfavourable exchange rates with the Australian dollar have been adversely affected by the increased value of the Australian dollar;
- International students feel their financial circumstances are constrained by visa regulations which limit the number of hours they may work (and thus any supplementary income they may earn) during the academic year. Students also express some frustration that (in some states at least)...
Download the Report: University student finances in 2012.

Financer ma formation continue
SALARIÉ secteur privé. SALARIÉ secteur public. DEMANDEUR D'EMPLOI.
Salarié du privé
Salarié en CDI
* Les mesures à l'initiative de l'employeur - Principaux dispositifs :
- Plan de formation - formation tout au long de la vie
- Bilan de compétences dans le cadre du plan de formation de l'entreprise
- Validation des compétences mise en œuvre par l’employeur
- Entretien professionnel
* Les mesures à l'initiative du salarié - Principaux dispositifs :
- Congé individuel de formation des salariés en contrat à durée indéterminée (CIF) 
- Droit individuel à la formation et contrat à durée indéterminée (DIF)
- Congé bilan de compétences - contrat à durée indéterminée (CBC)
- Congé de validation des acquis de l'expérience des salariés en CDI (Congé VAE)
- Congé individuel de formation - hors temps de travail
Salarié en CDD
- Plan de formation - formation tout au long de la vie
- Congé individuel de formation des salariés en contrat à durée déterminée (CIF CDD)
- Droit individuel à la formation et contrat à durée déterminée (DIF)
Salarié en Intérim
- Plan de formation des entreprises de travail temporaire
- Droit individuel à la formation dans le travail temporaire (DIF TT)
- Période de professionnalisation intérimaires (fiche en cours de réalisation ou de mise à jour)
- Congé individuel de formation des salariés intérimaires (CIF)
- Contrat de développement professionnel intérimaire (CDPI)
Salarié de la fonction publique
Fonction publique Etat
- Plan de formation
- Droit individuel à la formation - Fonctionnaires de l'Etat (DIF)
- Congé de formation professionnelle des agents non titulaires et ouvriers de l'Etat (CFP)
- Congé de formation professionnelle des agents titulaires de l'Etat (CFP)
- Période de professionnalisation
Fonction publique Territoriale
- Congé de formation professionnelle des agents non titulaires des collectivités territoriales (CFP)
- Congé de formation professionnelle des agents titulaires des collectivités territoriales (CFP)
- Plan de formation et préparation aux concours fonction publique territoriale
- Droit individuel de formation - FP territoriale (DIF)
Fonction publique Hospitalière
- Plan de formation fonction publique hospitalière
- Droit individuel de formation - hospitalier (DIF)
- Période de professionnalisation
Demandeur d'emploi
Demandeur d'emploi dont l'âge est inférieur ou égal à 26 ans
- Contrat d'apprentissage (secteur privé)
- Contrat de professionnalisation
- Régime public de rémunération des stagiaires
- Fonds d'insertion pour les lorrains (FIL)
Demandeur d'emploi dont l'âge est supérieur à 26 ans
- Rémunération de fin de formation (RFF)
- Action de formation préalable au recrutement (Pôle emploi) (AFPR)
- Aide différentielle au reclassement (ADR)- Aides à la formation dans le cadre de la convention d'assurance chômage du 18/01/06
- Allocation d'aide au retour à l'emploi-formation (AREF)
- Contrat de professionnalisation
- Fonds pour la formation en accès individuel régional (Lorraine) (FFAIR)
- Préparation opérationnelle à l'emploi (POE)
- Régime public de rémunération des stagiaires
- Rémunération des formations de Pôle emploi (RFPE)
- Stage agréé au titre de la rémunération des stagiaires
- Le Congé Individuel de Formation salarié en CDD
- Fonds d'insertion pour les lorrains (FIL)
Demandeur d'emploi bénéficiant des minima sociaux
- Stage agréé au titre de la rémunération des stagiaires
- Régime public de rémunération – Lorraine
- Rémunération des formations de Pôle emploi (RFPE)
- Fonds pour la formation en accès individuel régional (Lorraine) (FFAIR)
- Préparation opérationnelle à l'emploi (POE)
- Action de formation préalable au recrutement (Pôle emploi) (AFPR)
- Fonds d'insertion pour les lorrains (FIL).

Monday 16 September 2013 12:30-2pm. Venue: Barbara Falk room, CSHE, Lvl 1, 715 Swanston St., Carlton, Melbourne. Registration: lachlan.doughney@unimelb.edu.au.
Dr Emmaline Bexley, Lecturer in Higher Education, CSHE
Abstract
Student support arrangements are still framed by the old assumptions of an elite system of higher education in which it is presumed, by and large, that students are comfortably middle or upper class, and that financial independence is a choice rather than a necessity. Under these assumptions income support is remedial: it is designed to address a deficit in the 'non-traditional student.'
Recent research on student finances undertaken by the Centre for the Study of Higher Education for Universities Australia shows how poorly these old assumptions fit with the present profile of the student body. Today's student is more likely to be without the financial support of family; more likely to be in their late twenties or early 30s; more likely to have children. In short, less likely to be the middle class young people of the ‘elite’ or even ‘mass’ eras of higher education.
Using data from the student finances study, this presentation will unpack the effects of our present policy settings on students' experience of higher education, identify the key sites of financial stress within the student population, and outline the challenges for policy in this area.
Biography

Le CIF, le DIF, le plan de formation et les périodes de professionnalisation sont les dispositifs salariés principaux pour bénéficier d’un financement d’une formation. Des dispositifs moins connus sont également à la disposition des collaborateurs pour financer intégralement ou partiellement leurs projets de formation selon leur secteur d’activité.
Le congé de formation pour les agents de la fonction publique hospitalière
Si le salarié est agent hospitalier de la fonction publique, il peut bénéficier à titre personnel d’un congé de formation financé par l’ANFH (www.anfh.fr), il s’agit de l’OPCA de la fonction publique hospitalière.
Qui contacter ?
Vous devez prendre contact avec la délégation régionale de l’ANFH dont dépend l’établissement qui l’emploie. Des conseillers en dispositifs individuels accompagnent les agents de la fonction publique pour préparer et financer leur projet de formation.
Que couvre cette aide ?
Pendant la durée de sa formation, 85% du salaire brut du stagiaire sera pris en charge par l’ANFH dont il dépend. Attention ! Ce montant est plafonné à l’indice 650.Pour les agents de catégorie C, la rémunération est conservée intégralement pendant la durée de la formation. Suite de l'article...
Retrouvez les sources principales de financement de la formation pour le salarié (plan de formation, CIF, DIF, périodes de professionnalisation).

ETF manual on the use of indicators
1.0 GENERAL CONCEPTS
This chapter defines the concept of an indicator and explains its characteristics. The data sources that can be used to create indicators are also discussed. An indicator is only as reliable as the data it is based on, so close attention must be paid to data sources.
1.1 WHAT IS AN INDICATOR?
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, 2002a, p.25) defines an indicator as ‘a quantitative or qualitative factor or variable that provides a simple and reliable means to measure achievement, to reflect the changes connected to an intervention, or to help assess the performance of a development actor’. In other words, an indicator is an aggregation of raw or processed data that helps us to quantify the phenomenon under study and a tool that helps us to grasp complex realities. An indicator is not raw data, but rather uses that data to characterise or assess a particular issue. For example, the absolute number of literate adults is not a particularly useful datum until we use the statistic to create an indicator such as, for example, the adult literate population as a proportion of the total adult population in the country.
1.2 WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD INDICATOR?
Several issues must be considered when creating an indicator. A good indicator should be relevant, should summarise information without distorting it, and should be coordinated, structured, comparable, accurate and reliable. Indicators need to be relevant to policy goals, and it is therefore essential to identify these goals before deciding what to measure and how to do it. For example, if the goal were to increase access to education, the relevant indicator could be the rate of participation in education. An indicator should summarise existing information without distortion. For example, if we are interested in the number of students per teacher, we need data on both the number of students and the number of teachers to obtain the student-teacher ratio. However, such data is susceptible to distortion; for example, if we include both full-time and part-time teachers, the ratios we obtain will be lower but they will not be a faithful reflection of the real situation. Thus it is important to clearly understand the nature of the data available before constructing the indicator. Indicators must also be coordinated and structured; in other words, we have to ensure that they are constructed and used in a consistent, comparable and comprehensive way. Consistency is particularly important when we are monitoring data and trends over time or comparing data between countries.
If we are to produce comparable results, the definitions and calculation methods we use must be consistent. Comparable results can only be obtained using clearly defined indicators based on identical definitions to ensure consistency even when data are collected at different times and indicators are calculated by different people. Indicators should also be comprehensive, that is, they should always encompass all relevant aspects of the phenomenon under study. Finally, indicators and the data on which they are based should be accurate and reliable, and any deficiencies in the data should be made clear. An indicator is only reliable when we can trust what it shows.
1.3 WHAT DATA SOURCES ARE AVAILABLE?
To calculate an indicator, we need data, and this can be obtained from different sources. A good data source is comprehensive in coverage, unbiased, and consistent over time. Potential data sources include surveys, censuses, administrative databases, reports, interviews and focus groups. In education, most data comes from schools in the form of statistics, such as the number of students enrolled or the number of graduates. Some of this data is aggregated at the national level by education ministries. School inspection reports can be used to assess the quality of education programmes. Surveys carried on among students provide information about student satisfaction and the effectiveness of interventions. Expert surveys can be used to assess the overall quality of VET systems. All these types of data can be used to create indicators relevant to policy goals. It is important to distinguish between primary and secondary data sources. Primary sources are original documents or data providing first-hand and direct evidence (e.g. interviews with country officials). Secondary sources include the information from primary sources that has been processed and interpreted. Other secondary sources include international organisations (e.g. World Bank (WB), the International Labour Organisation (ILO), etc), whose published data and indicators are usually based on information provided directly by countries and other primary data. Thus, when data for the calculation of indicators are available from different sources, we should expect the data from each source to produce the same results if the same definitions and calculation methods are used. Sometimes, however, national and international bodies provide disparate data; in such cases, the reasons for the differences should be identified before deciding which source to use.
1.4 QUANTITATIVE, QUALITATIVE AND PROCESS INDICATORS
Decision making procedures should be based on the systematic and regular use of evidence. Evidence is the key to an in-depth understanding of the problems that affect education and training systems and is thus a prerequisite to making informed policy choices. Consequently, having and making good use of a solid evidence base is of great importance in the fields of VET and labour market research. In VET, as in any kind of research, evidence can be divided into two main types: quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative evidence is objective information about the real world and is numerical in nature. Thus quantitative indicators are expressed as numbers, for example, the number of inhabitants in a country, or the public expenditure on VET systems as a percentage of national expenditure on education. Qualitative evidence, on the other hand, deals with the qualities of the object of study and may include subjective information, opinions or judgements about an issue. Qualitative evidence is typically expressed in the form of descriptive information, although it can also be quantified and expressed numerically. There are many sources of qualitative evidence, such as case studies, observations, reports, discussions and in-depth interviews. In this manual, we restrict ourselves to the type of qualitative evidence that can be quantified. It should be noted, however, that this is only one kind of qualitative information that can be used to analyse VET. For example, we present indicators that measure the intensity of a perception, such as the results of a survey that asks experts how much corruption they perceive in a particular country. The answers, which take the form of qualitative observations, can then be assigned a score, and the resulting numerical data can be used to quantitatively compare corruption perception and to calculate summary statistics (averages, for example). The third kind of indicator described in this manual is the process indicator. Process indicators can be used to identify problems or gaps in a particular area by measuring the actual values of the process indicators against pre-defined targets or standards. They can be based on quantitative evidence (objective information) or qualitative evidence (subjective information). In chapter 3, we provide examples of how quantitative, qualitative and process indicators are created. The indicators discussed relate to the employment and education targets established by the EU for 2020 (E&E 2020), Quality Assurance for VET (EQAVET) and the ETF Torino Process and Entrepreneurial Learning initiatives.
1.5 WHAT IS A BENCHMARK AND HOW TO CHOOSE IT?
The United Nations defines a benchmark as ‘a concrete point of reference (in the form of a value, a state, or a characteristic) that has been verified by practice (in the form of empirical evidence, experience, or observation) to lead to fulfilment of more overall objectives or visions (in isolation or together with the fulfilment of other benchmarks)’ (United Nations, 2010, p. 17). While indicators serve to quantify a phenomenon, benchmarks serve as a standard or point of reference against which the current situation may be compared. Finding appropriate standards for this purpose is not always an easy task, and context is crucial for the ETF because we need to make comparisons between different partner countries. If we want to compare countries within a single region (for example, North Africa), the results may be more instructive if we find a benchmark in that region rather than use a reference from elsewhere (an EU member state for instance), which might have higher standards but in a completely different context in terms of aspects such as labour market needs and institutions. The usefulness of the exercise is vastly increased if the context of the benchmark and that of the case under study are similar.
Download ETF manual on the use of indicators.

By Marielk. This week, the European University Association (EUA) published a new report on the issue of funding of higher education in Europe in the context of crisis, following up on the previous report from June 2012 that identified that the countries which had suffered most from cuts in public funding were to a large extent located in Eastern and Southern Europe. The news release from the 2013 report highlights that out of the 17 countries that had reported data on funding developments the changes in the last year show that in a number of countries the public budgets are now on the increase. Read more...

By Nyshka Chandran. Australia is the world's most expensive destination for foreign students, but thanks to a weakening currency, the popular venue for education is set to become more affordable. According to a report from HSBC, Australia currently tops the rankings of the costliest nations for higher education, with annual expenses topping $38,000 a year. But that could change with the Australian currency tumbling more than 12 percent against the U.S. dollar this year. Read more...

By Ben Collins. HSBC has put out a report which found Australia is the most expensive country for overseas students to live, and study in. While it costs around US$38,000 per year, the country is still really popular with overseas students, and HSBC said the falling Australian dollar will see this increase. According to the research, Australia’s average annual cost of US$38,000 was followed closely by the US, with total costs over US$35,000, and the UK, third with $30,000. Read more...