FEATURE
Is university worth it? It is said that Australia is a nation of graduates, with more and more people opting for tertiary education each year. As many local students prepare to start university this year, we look at whether a university degree is translating to better career opportunities. By Madeleine Curby. Australia has one of the highest university enrolment rates in the world. Over 1.4 million students were studying in 2015 - up from 1.3 million in 2014 - as reported in University Australia’s 2017 data report. And it is expected that on average, 70 percent of young people living in Australia will graduate from tertiary education based on 2015 patterns of graduation, as reported by the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) 2017 Education at a Glance report. Of these students, only 39 percent are Australian residents (which is below the OECD average of 49 percent). The report also found that 40 percent of young adults under 30 are expected to enter the labour force for the first time with a tertiary education. So what are people studying and is this translating to greater employment prospects and higher salaries?
Popular subjects Currently the most popular university courses Australia-wide are STEM related (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), while the least popular are journalism and social sciences. This trend is reflected in both university entry levels and pay, with the more popular courses requiring higher ATARs and earning higher salaries. But not all universities have the same requirements, which is pushing certain course entry levels up, while others spiral downwards. For example, The University of Sydney is renowned for being a prestigious and popular university, which has driven the ATAR requirements for most courses up. To study a Bachelor of Commerce here in 2018, the required ATAR was 95. However, the same course at the University of Newcastle had an ATAR of 65.75. In effect, this has meant that people who never had the opportunity to attend university before are now able to do so if they enrol at a smaller, less prestigious university. 4 I THE VILLAGE OBSERVER I NO. 270 I FEBRUARY 2018
In this system, universities are partly responsible for churning out graduates, with supply potentially exceeding demand.
Too many graduates for too few jobs? Adzuna, an Australia-wide job hunting platform, released its 2017 report showing that 22 graduates will compete for each graduate job vacancy. In NSW, this number was 20 to one. Data released in September last year by the Australian government found that only 71 percent of graduates secure a job of some sort straight out of university, while 15 percent were still unemployed four years after graduating. The report also found that of those employed full-time, 30.9 percent were unhappy as they were unable to find suitable jobs in their area of expertise. Interestingly, the OECD report found that university graduates and those with vocational training (including apprenticeships) actually had similar employment rates; 84 percent for tertiary-educated adults and 74 percent for vocational-educated adults.
Employment rates of tertiary educated 25 - 64 year-olds
Employment rates
Education Arts, humanities, social sciences, journalism and information Business admin and law Natural sciences, mathematics and statistics Information and communication technologies Health and welfare Vocational education
82% 80% 85% 85% 86% 84% 74%
Figures from the OECD report
The highest graduation rates for tertiary-educated students were from STEM degrees, whilst students in arts and humanities, social science and journalism experienced the lowest employment rates.
Does a university degree mean more opportunities and better pay? For the most part, yes, but there are a few different factors in play. The National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) reports that the median annual income of a Vocational Education & Training (VET) graduate working full-time is $56,000. However, according to the Federal Government’s latest student survey published on its Quality Indicators in Learning and Teaching website (QILT), the median graduate salary for those with a university degree is also $56,000. Yet, VET graduates don’t have the same level of HECS debt. For university graduates, increases in salary were seen three years after graduation when the median salary rose to $68,700. Medicine is considered one of the bestpaying jobs for graduates, with an average salary three years after course completion of $100,000. The only other career to beat this was dentistry with a median salary of $120,000. Next are engineering graduates earning $75,900; lawyers earning $75,000; and pharmacists earning $72,800. Those who study medicine are also most likely to get a job after graduation with almost 98 percent of graduated doctors gaining employment. The employment rate for pharmacy also sits around 97.1 percent. However, for those who study creative arts, the news is not so great. While the employment rate has significantly increased from 49.2 percent in 2013 to 80.1 percent in 2016, it is still nearly 20 percent lower for art graduates than medical graduates.
The changing nature of employment Another factor for university graduates to consider is the increase in part-time and contract work. For the past 12-24 months, I have worked in contract roles and I have many friends and colleagues in the same situation.
