By Natassia Chrysanthos and Robyn Grace
It’s a five-hour round-trip journey – one train and two buses each way – for 19-year-old student Vina Afaj to get from her home in the outer suburbs to her inner-city university campus for each class.
“I have to plan my whole day just around that commute time,” she said. “I am actually somewhat exhausted by the time I’ve gotten there.”
Vina Afaj says she would use a local study hub, but still needs to commute hours to campus for science classes.Credit: Eddie Jim
Long and expensive commutes faced by thousands of students like Afaj and their alternative – the high costs of moving to the inner city – are a major barrier to university study, creating an educational divide between young Australians based on where they live.
Almost 45 per cent of Australians aged 25 to 34 have a university degree, but the proportion of those with degrees drops the further you get from the inner-city campuses. Just 15 per cent of young people from the Hawkesbury area, at the edge of northern Sydney, have a degree. In the Cardinia area on Melbourne’s south-east fringe, that figure is 19 per cent.
But setting up local study hubs for students in the outer suburbs of Australia’s capital cities could help, according to an interim review of universities that the federal government will respond to this week.
The study hubs provide computer access, internet and study spaces, as well as in-person administrative and academic help, for local students regardless of where they go to university.
There are already 34 in operation in regional locations across the country, but the expert report says they should be expanded based on evidence they improve student participation, retention and completion rates, particularly for students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.
In response to the recommendation, the Albanese government will spend $67 million to double the current number of study hubs – establishing 14 new suburban and 20 new regional ones.
Federal Education Minister Jason Clare said he wanted more young people from the outer suburbs and regions to go to university.
“More and more jobs require a university degree. That means we will need more people with university qualifications in the years ahead,” he said.
“This can’t just be people that live within 10km of the CBD. It also means more Australians from the outer suburbs and the regions getting that chance... and that means bringing university closer to them.”
Improving access to university for students from disadvantaged backgrounds – including those from low socioeconomic groups, regional and rural students – has become a key priority for the government as it readies for the biggest overhaul of the higher education sector in more than a decade.
Clare has asked a panel of university experts to probe that issue, as well as other major long-term challenges regarding funding, research investment and student debt.
Their interim report, which will make several recommendations around short-term issues such as the study hubs, will be published this week while a final report is due by the end of the year.
University student Vina Afaj can spend five hours a day commuting. She says study hubs in the outer suburbs will help, but won’t be enough.Credit: Eddie Jim
Afaj, who is completing a double degree in arts and science at Deakin University in inner east Melbourne, but lives in the outer south-east, said she would take advantage of a study hub if one were to open nearby, but like many students, she still has to attend practical classes.
“I also still fundamentally believe the issues regarding housing and affordable education must be better addressed,” she said.
She is cutting back to part-time study this semester while she looks for work and attempts to find accommodation closer to university.
“Maybe they could have subsidised accommodation nearby,” she said. “So then I can be able to just freely attend campus, on time, ready to learn.”
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