Amid much fanfare, the University of Melbourne this year introduced the “Melbourne Model”, effectively reducing the range of undergraduate degrees which students could complete.
Under the Melbourne Model, courses like law, medicine, dentistry, architecture, teaching and nursing could only be undertaken by postgraduate students. While ostensibly created to “build on cross-disciplinary research” and allow “a greater coherence in course design”, many believe the Model was introduced as a Trojan Horse to increase the number of full-fee paying students.
The move by Melbourne University to only offer subjects like law and medicine on a postgraduate basis was remarkably well timed. Only months after the Melbourne Model was introduced, the Rudd Government announced that “from 2009, full fee paying undergraduate places will be phased out in public universities for domestic students.” Meanwhile, the Government will provide “funding of $249 million will be provided for up to 11,000 new Commonwealth supported places by 2011 to replace full fee paying places. This will ensure students gain access to higher education on merit and not on their ability to pay.”
What that means is that Monash University, which currently provides courses like law and medicine on an “undergraduate basis” will be starved of funding, while Melbourne University, which operates those courses on a postgraduate basis, can continue to accept domestic full-fee paying students to its heart’s content. (Conspiracy theorists would point to the close link between the father of the Melbourne Model, Glyn Davis, and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Removing funding for domestic full-fee payers provides a considerable advantage to the unpopular Melbourne Model).
The Melbourne Model received a deal of criticism, with many school graduates opting for rival Monash University courses to avoid having to complete an initial undergraduate degree. For the first time, Monash University “leap-frogged Melbourne to become the most popular Victorian institution for undergraduate applications”, reported The Age.
But it appears that popularity is less important than money, with Monash seeming to quietly adopt its own Melbourne Model by stealth. Recently, Monash University announced that it will be relocating its law school from the main Clayton Campus to its smaller Caulfield Campus, which is about 20 minutes away by car.
By relocating the law faculty to Caulfield, Monash will make it practically difficult, in fact almost impossible, for students to complete double degrees such as Engineering/Law, Commerce/Law or Science/Law — in effect, it will probably end up compelling students to first undertake a Science or Commerce degree and then move across to a different campus to complete a graduate law degree.
(While Monash University Dean of Law Arie Freiberg told Crikey that the faculty will work to avoid disruption through timetabling, ultimately, the vast majority of undergraduates will be faced with a near impossible scheduling task).
In explaining the shift, Freiberg notes that “the Clayton Building is no longer able to provide for the needs of a modern law school.”
As for why the current law faculty couldn’t be rebuilt on the larger Clayton campus, Freiberg says that “the high cost and limited benefit … would not enable us to provide sufficient teaching space within the building.” That seems a little perplexing, given the land size of the Clayton campus is around 50 times that of the Caulfield campus.
Admittedly, Freiberg isn’t blame, having no choice but to defend the decision. Crikey understands the law faculty was effectively forced to relocate by the University after being faced with remaining in sub-standard facilities or moving to a brand new $85 million complex. Why did Monash University compel the law school to switch? Possibly to recover the millions annually it will lose when the Government stops universities from having domestic undergraduate full-fee payers.
The Melbourne Model is vastly unpopular with students, but thanks to Kevin and his mate Glyn, it sadly looks like the maligned Melbourne Model may be the only one which is financially viable for our leading universities.
‘Melbourne model is the only one which is financially viable for our leading universities’.
What is the Australian National University (which has a balanced range of options for undergrads- including combined courses, or straight law/ science/ economics etc.), then? Chopped liver?
so you’re a self-admitted conspiracy theorist then Adam?
😉
Victorian students may be voting with their feet and going under-grad at Monash, but they are mistaken. Having studied both here in Australia (UQ) and in North America (UBC) I can assure students the Melbourne model provides a better education, with less pitfalls for young school leavers.
While it takes a little longer, the Melobourne model provides a better education with stronger essential skills being developed as an undergrad and also reducing the costs of poor course selection on young school leavers. The Americans have the best quality unis in the world and all the best adopt this model.
I suspect that over time Melbourne will return to its place as the most sought after uni for undergrads as the advantages of its model become known to the mums, dads, and school leavers out there.
Hmmmm. There is a fairly frequent shuttle bus running between the two campuses and students already study at both locations.
The Caulfield campus is almost right on top of Caulfield railway station which would make it very attractive to many students.
Schwab is basically right, but his timing is out and hence his conspiracy theory is wrong. The ‘Melbourne model’ was first proposed in a discussion paper released in July 2005, after Davis joined the University of Melbourne but well before Rudd became federal Labor’s leader on 4 December 2006.
The discussion paper makes clear the financial motive for Melbourne’s move of professional education to graduate programs: at that stage the Australian Government limited domestic full fee paying places in undergraduate programs to 25% of HECS places, while there was no limit on the proportion of domestic full fee paying places in postgraduate programs. The other consideration was to increase the university’s proportion of graduate students.
Many other universities offer some professional programs as graduate-only programs. The University of Adelaide tried graduate-only entry to law in the mid 1990s but ended it because all the St Peter’s kids were going to Flinders University: there’s no point spending a fortune on getting your kid a high tertiary entrance rank unless it guarantees entry to an elite university program. Flinders was the first university in Australia to offer graduate-only medicine, but that has since been followed by several others.
Schwab is probably right to observe that the trend is growing. It will be interesting to see how far the University of Western Australia will go in this direction. Its deputy vice chancellor (academic) Don Markwell, who was warden of the University of Melbourne’s Trinity College until 2007, advocated the liberal arts and sciences strongly in an options paper last year, but he will face strong resistance at the deeply conservative UWA.
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The University of Melbourne (2005) Growing esteem. Choices for the University of Melbourne. A discussion paper that invites involvement and response, July, http://growingesteem.unimelb.edu.au/2005consultation/docs/vcconsultation.pdf