Demographic and Social Change:
Implications for Education Funding.
Part II
Participation in Education
School retention rates
Tertiary participation
Access to higher education
Access to vocational education
Access to tertiary participation
Duration of higher education
Two key determinants of education expenditures over the
longer term are the pool of potential students and the rate at which they
participate in education. The first section demonstrated demographic
pressures are likely to lead to lower pressure on education expenditures
assuming the current age profile of students is maintained in the future.
This section discusses trends in school retention rates and likely
developments in tertiary participation.
School participation, as measured by the Year 12 apparent
retention rate, increased very rapidly during the 1980s. The apparent
retention rate more than doubled in that period reaching a peak of 77 per
cent in 1992. This increase in the apparent retention rate has been
associated with large shifts in the full-time labour market activity of
teenagers. This is to be expected since for teenagers there is a choice
after completing compulsory schooling between continuing to Year 12 or
seeking full-time work. In 1978, 41 per cent of the teenage population
worked full-time whereas in 1996 some 17 per cent were employed full-time.
These changes have also, in part, been associated with an increase in the
proportion of teenagers working part-time, from 10 to 29 per cent over the
same period. As teenagers have increasingly stayed on at school it appears
that employment is still seen as an important activity with 30 per cent of
school students engaged in part-time work. Current trends, however, are
unlikely to reverse given they are largely driven by long term structural
changes associated with increased labour force participation of older
women and changes in the occupational demand for labour, in particular the
growth in demand for professionals and para-professionals.
Predicting the Year 12 apparent retention rate in 25 years
time is extremely difficult and unlikely to be a very worthwhile or
sensible exercise. However, there is considerable variation in the Year 12
apparent retention rates among the States and the male apparent retention
rate is currently 12 percentage points below the female apparent retention
rate. Therefore, there is considerable scope for overall retention to
increase.
In the remainder of this section we present a more
extensive consideration of trends in tertiary participation. For
methodological reasons, we are chiefly concerned with post-school
participation but on occasion we examine higher education and TAFE
participation separately.
Participation in tertiary education might increase in the
future for two reasons. Either a greater number of students could gain
access to tertiary education or persons may study for longer (or access
and duration may increase simultaneously). This paper assesses likely
trends in access to tertiary education through a cohort approach, that is,
by looking at the entry of age cohorts to education. Combined with a brief
discussion of the duration of study this will give some idea of
prospective trends in tertiary participation.
This paper uses a life table approach to explore the access
of age cohorts to tertiary education. We observe the behaviour of
different age cohorts over a relatively short span of time and assume
these patterns are unchanged over the life cycle. By inference, we can
then assess the likelihood that members of cohort will attend tertiary
education. We have two ways of approaching this task. The first approach
is to use administrative data from the higher education and TAFE sectors
showing entry to tertiary education by age. An alternative way of
proceeding is to examine ABS data on educational qualifications by age.
The advantage of using the two approaches is that each approach can check
or corroborate information provided by the other.
From the higher education database we obtain the number of
commencements in higher education in 1995[1]
of persons who had no prior experience of university study by single year
of age. We then obtain the probability of persons entering higher
education in that year for the first time for each age group by dividing
by the respective population. By summing these ‘age commencement’
probabilities we derive an estimate of the likelihood of a person entering
higher education throughout their lifetime.
Figure 5 shows that most persons attend university at a
relatively young age. By age 25 it is estimated that about 36 per cent of
any particular cohort will have entered higher education. Thereafter, an
additional 9 per cent of the cohort will enter university giving a
lifetime probability of attending university of about 45 per cent.
Figure 5 shows that most persons attend university
at a relatively young age
The estimates presented below do not include persons who
failed to provide information about their prior education experience.
Hence the estimates represent a lower bound to lifetime university
attendance. If this additional group of persons were included then the
likelihood of entering university by age 25 would rise to 38 per cent and
over a lifetime to 50 per cent. This represents an upper bound to access
to university since some of these persons may already have been to
university.
The lifetime probability of attending university now
appears to have attained a higher level, at around 45 per cent, compared
with comparable figures in the late 1980s and early 1990s (Figure 6). Thus
it appears increasing access has contributed to increasing participation
in higher education over the 1990s. However, there was some variation in
estimates of lifetime access in the late 1980s and early 1990s. For
example, in 1992 the estimated lifetime probability of attending higher
education fell 4 percentage points to 38 per cent. This indicates the
steady increase in enrolments or participation in the 1990s has not
necessarily resulted in increasing access to university. Thus since
participation in higher education depends on both access and the duration
of study it follows that students must have engaged in longer periods of
study in some years during the 1990s. Relevant factors here include a
decline in the number of two year diploma awards, an increase in the
numbers undertaking a postgraduate degree and an increase in the
popularity of double degrees. The issue of changes in the duration of
study is examined later in this section.
Figure 6: Lifetime probability of attending higher
education and student enrolments, 1989 - 1997
An alternative approach to predicting the lifetime
probability of attending higher education is to track cohorts through time
using ABS educational attainment data. For example, we can examine the
proportion of 15-19 year-olds with degrees in 1991 and five years later in
1996 measure the proportion of 20-24 year-olds with degrees. The
difference between these two figures gives the likelihood of 20-24
year-olds attending university and getting a degree over the 5 year
period. We can follow a similar procedure for all other age cohorts up to
age 65. We then estimate the lifetime probability of getting a degree by
summing the probability of completing university over a 5 year period for
each of the age groups.
Figure 7 shows that, using ABS data, the lifetime
probability of getting a degree is around 41 per cent (the earlier graph
using administrative data is included as a comparison). However, the ABS
data have not been adjusted to allow for the influx of educated migrants
(that is, the 1996 data will include migrants entering Australia between
1991 and 1996). The ABS estimates of the lifetime probability of getting a
degree are therefore inflated by the impact of migration. Note the
administrative data refer to commencements and the ABS data refers to
completions. Comparing the two data sources gives a relatively high
completion rate of around 90 per cent but note this figure is probably
biased upwards because of the effect of migration in the ABS figures.
Urban et al. (1999) estimate the completion rate for the cohort of
undergraduates commencing study in 1992 at around 82 per cent. Applying
this to the ABS qualifications data gives a lifetime probability of
attending higher education of around 50 per cent, a little higher than the
estimate from administrative commencement data. One noticeable feature of
Figure 7 is the flatter age profile of the ABS data. This may be
explained, in part, by persons entering university but then completing
their degree with some time delay.
Figure 7: Lifetime probability of commencing and completing
higher education, based on 1995 data
It would appear from the two data sources that we can draw
a broad conclusion that the lifetime probability of entering higher
education appears to be 45 to 50 per cent, which places Australia among
the top ranking OECD countries in terms of access to higher education.
The approach taken above assumes the behaviour of different
age cohorts at the present point in time is repeated from here on. Thus it
makes no allowance for the fact that a sudden increase in the number of
younger persons entering university might flow through to a lower
probability of attendance later on in life. Given substantial increases in
higher education participation by younger age groups in recent years then,
following this line of argument, the estimates presented above may
represent an overestimate of the lifetime probability of attending
university. There is a contrary argument. That is, recent increases in
participation by younger age cohorts may well lead to a greater
‘taste’ for education. As particular age groups see more and more of
their peers entering university this might encourage others within that
age group to do likewise. Under this scenario, there is no reason to
suspect any drop off in the number of new entrants to university. The
sizable male/female differential is also worth noting. Analogous
calculations to those in Figure 6 give estimates of probability of
attending higher education of 38.1 per cent for males and 52.5 per cent
for females. Any trend for male participation to catch up to female
participation would directly lead to an increase in overall participation.
We use the same life cycle approach to investigate lifetime
TAFE attendance using administrative data from NCVER. We include only
persons new to TAFE in 1995 with no stated prior tertiary education
experience undertaking the following courses; diploma through to trade
certificate and AQF Certificate III through to AQF Bachelor’s Degree.
Figure 8 shows that most persons entering TAFE for the
first time do so at a younger age. However, unlike higher education, there
are also a significant number of older persons entering TAFE who are new
to tertiary education. By age 20 the likelihood of entering TAFE is about
27 per cent and this rises to 34 per cent by age 25. Thereafter, the
number of older persons entering TAFE rises steadily so that in total
about half of each cohort is projected to enter TAFE. That is, the
lifetime probability of entering TAFE is estimated to be about 52 per
cent.
This is likely to be an overestimate of lifetime access to
TAFE since the data refer to enrolments rather than the number of persons
commencing in TAFE. That is, the data include persons undertaking multiple
enrolments. However, given the nature of the courses selected eg diplomas,
trade certificates and the like which tend to be of longer duration then
the likelihood of multiple enrolments may be fairly limited[2]. Since there is a possibility of the inclusion of
multiple enrolments and we have included enrolments in only a selected
range of TAFE courses, it must be acknowledged there is a certain amount
of imprecision attached to the estimates of lifetime access to TAFE
presented here but they are, nevertheless, intended to be broadly
indicative.
Figure 8:
Lifetime probability of attending TAFE, based on 1995 data
The same point about recent increases in access to higher
education by younger age groups possibly flowing through to a lower
likelihood of entry later in life also applies to TAFE. The contrary
argument that this might alternatively lead to an increasing ‘taste’
for TAFE education later on in life could also apply.
Estimates of lifetime access to TAFE using ABS data are not
shown above. The data are unable to show the number of persons newly
acquiring TAFE qualifications in each age group. The educational
attainment data are net figures in effect because they show the number of
persons newly acquiring TAFE qualifications but exclude persons moving on
from TAFE to higher education. Given that we are unable to reliably
account for the latter group we have not presented estimates of TAFE
participation based on ABS data above.
If we sum the proportion of persons new to higher education
and new to TAFE we can estimate the lifetime probability of entering
tertiary education. However, before we do this we need to exclude persons
entering higher education who have had prior tertiary experience in the
TAFE sector and vice-versa. In the earlier discussion it was shown the
lifetime probability of entering higher education in 1995 was around 45
per cent using administrative data. If we exclude all persons with prior
TAFE experience that figure falls to around 38 per cent and this is the
appropriate figure shown in Figure 9.
The figure shows that using the life cycle approach the
estimated lifetime probability of entering tertiary education is very
high. Our estimates using administrative data suggest that almost 90 per
cent of persons can expect to enter higher education or TAFE over their
lifetime. This would tend to suggest that access to tertiary education
must be very close to saturation point providing little scope for further
increases in terms of access. If we include new entrants to higher
education who failed to indicate whether they had any prior education
experience then we derive an upper bound for access to tertiary education
of 94 per cent.
Lifetime probability of commencing and completing tertiary
education, based on 1995 data
Figure 9: Commencing tertiary (based on higher
education and TAFE administrative data)
Figure 10: Completing tertiary (based on ABS
educational qualifications data)
We use the ABS educational attainment data, showing persons
with post-school qualifications, to estimate that the lifetime probability
of completing a tertiary qualification is around 70 per cent as shown in
Figure 10[3][4].
However, as was mentioned earlier, the attainment data
refer only to completions and excludes persons who commence a course but
fail to complete. Comparing the commencement data from administrative
sources with the completions data from ABS estimates gives a crude
estimate of the completion rate in tertiary education of 76 per cent,
compared to Urban et al.’s estimate of 82 per cent for higher education
noted earlier. Once again, this figure may be biased upwards to the extent
that there is no allowance made for the impact of educated migrants in the
methodology using ABS estimates. In any event there appears to be
relatively little scope for further significant expansion in the
proportion of persons accessing tertiary education (participation is a
different matter since it also depends on length in education).
While there appears to be limited scope for further
substantial increases in access to tertiary education, participation could
continue to increase if students pursue further study or courses requiring
longer periods of study. With regard to the latter point, the growing
popularity of double degree courses might be one source of increasing
participation (about 5 per cent of the student population were enrolled in
double degrees in 1997).
We can derive estimates of the duration of study by
applying the same cohort approach used before. First, we derive lifetime
participation in higher education for all participants, not just
commencers. That is, we sum age participation rates for all first year,
second year, third year students and so on. Next we divide this sum by the
earlier estimate derived for the lifetime probability of accessing
university (45 per cent in 1995). Dividing lifetime participation rates
for the whole student population by lifetime access rates for newly
commencing students gives an estimate of the average number of years that
a cohort can expect to attend university. In 1997 this figure is 3.8
years.
It is interesting to observe that the average duration of
study is only marginally higher at the end of the period under observation
compared with the starting point. Duration increased steadily during the
early 1990s as existing students stayed on longer and this may, in part,
be due to the impact of the recession. Thus participation increased in the
early 1990s as universities accommodated their existing students’ desire
for more lengthy periods of study. While duration may be influenced by
shorter run cyclical factors, there may also be structural factors at work
such as the trend towards double degrees and lifelong learning. These
structural factors are acting to increase duration, and therefore
participation, over the longer term. Offsetting these factors are policy
settings affecting the level of HECS (rates increased in 1996 for new
students) and the reduction in HECS liable places for post-graduate
coursework.
Figure 11: Duration of study and student enrolments in
higher education, 1989-1997
Figure 11:
Duration of study and student enrolments in higher education, 1989-1997
If we compare Figures 6 and 11 we note that the sources of
increasing participation differed over the period. During the early 1990s,
while there was some variation in access to higher education as shown by
Figure 6, there was nevertheless a consistent upward trend in duration as
universities enabled established students to study longer. From, the mid
1990s onwards, this pattern changed as universities permitted greater
numbers of new entrants access to higher education while at the same time
duration fell, returning to levels close to those of the late 1980s.
BACK
/ NEXT
Return to the top of the page
|
