Why targets for poor kids going to uni won’t work

The 2023 NAPLAN results show we are not on track for significant increases in university participation for low socioeconomic status students.

NAPLAN outcomes are reported by parental education level, an important socioeconomic status indicator. Across the

Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 tests students whose parents finished their education at Year 12 or below showed low rates of achieving ‘strong’ or ‘exceeding expectations’ results, which are promising foundations for good Year 12 results.

Young people from low socioeconomic backgrounds choosing vocational education options is not a problem than needs fixing.

Instead, these students have high rates of ‘needs additional support’ results, the new NAPLAN term for not meeting minimum school year-appropriate standards.

Today’s Year 3 students will reach university age shortly before the 2035 target date. Recent NAPLAN research tracked results for individual students from Year 3 through to Year 9. Fewer than one in five students below the Year 3 minimum reading standard recovered in Year 5 and continued meeting the relevant minimum standards in Years 7 and 9. Catch-up is the exception, not the norm.

A 55 per cent overall higher education attainment rate implies that everyone with an ATAR of 45 or over should go to university. Participation rates are already high at ATARs of 70 or over, so increases must mainly come from students with ATARs between 45 and 69.

ATAR ranks the Year 12 age cohort, while NAPLAN assesses performance against set criteria. If school results improved significantly the 45 to 69 ATAR range would reflect higher underlying achievement than now. But university students with recent ATARs below 50 face a more than 40 per cent risk of not finishing a degree. For ATARs of 50-59 the risk exceeds 35 per cent. Given these risks, young people should not be pushed into choices that risk drop out and unnecessary HELP debt.

Lower-ATAR school leavers should consider vocational education. While on average university graduates earn more than people with vocational qualifications, 45 to 69 ATAR students are not average university students. Their ATAR limits access to courses leading to high-salary occupations. Low-ATAR graduates risk working in jobs that only require a Year 12 education.

Especially for young men, vocational education can offer better options than these lower-range university outcomes. On Census 2021 data, men in the top 25 per cent of career earnings with vocational Certificate III or IV qualifications, which include many trades courses, earn more than men in the middle of the bachelor-degree graduate income range.

Women are the majority

With a strong trades labour market more late-teenage young men are starting apprenticeships or traineeships. In 2022 commencing enrolments surged 29 per cent on 2021, to reach the highest level since 2015.

No official university enrolment data after 2021 is available, but multiple other data sources suggest it is down in 2022 and 2023.

The number of young women commencing apprenticeships and traineeships increased by 7 per cent in 2022, but the vocational courses favoured by women pay less on average than those chosen by men. That is one reason why 60 per cent of university students are female.

A good post-school education system respects and accommodates these choices. It neither sets artificial targets nor, as now in higher education, artificial caps.

Young people from low socioeconomic backgrounds choosing vocational education options that pay more than a degree is not a problem that needs fixing. Policymakers should neither pressure them to go to university nor penalise universities that fail to enrol them.

But if future employment opportunities move in favour of occupations served by higher education, then the post-school education system should be designed to adapt.

We had a flexible higher education system between 2012 and 2017, demand driven funding. It was not perfect. But it remains preferable to the government-knows-best approach of the Universities Accord interim report.