As part of my research on higher ed, I checked out statistics on student numbers and other things collected by DEST. A particularly striking figure is that on commencements by non-overseas students. This series rises steadily until 1996 (to about 230 000) then stops.
Here’s the table
| 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | ||
| 194,746 | 200,709 | 206,202 | 221,531 | 233,310 | 232,890 | 229,420 | 231,392 | 231,992 | 237,960 |
Commencements are a more sensitive indicator of responses to policy changes than student numbers, and this certainly tells the story of human capital investment under the present government, or at least in the Kemp period covered by the data set.
Over the same period, the number of Full-Time Equivalent academic staff actually declined, continuing a decline in staff-student ratios that began under Labor (the picture is worse than it looks at first glance because overseas student numbers have been rising).
So, we’ve got a smaller proportion of the population going to university, and receiving a lower-quality education. This is the same story as we got from reform of school education in the early 1990s notably under the Kennett and Olsen governments. Whatever short-run improvements in measured productivity have been extracted from micro-economic reform will be more than offset by lower investment in human capital.
John Quiggin 
There is another educational level that has also taken a hammering under Liberal philosophy.
Traineeships are a great way for a firm to get cheap labour and the traineeships on offer have been largely converted to short term training on the job which lacks intellectual rigour. It does make young people learn to do as they are told and not make waves because otherwise they may not be taken on to study for the next stages of the underpaid traineeships.
Meantime the skill levels have been eroded so that a mechanic may only know how to tune a motor or fix the suspension.
Under Labour there may have been problems but they had an agenda which encouraged children to complete their education, to undertake meaningful training or tertiary education and to be part of the future.
Under Kemp and now Nelson so much money has been diverted to education as a market (private) that there is none left to provide education as knowledge (public). Just as in housing the Liberal coalition’s involvement has resulted in market distortion and failure.
John – did you do the obvious thing and look at the size of the relevant youth cohorts? The number of births peaked in 1972 and, given the modest delaying effect of on population aging of immigration and the participation-lowering effect of the early 90’s recovery, I’d guess 1996 ought to have been about the peak of enrolments even without policy effects.
Which query should not be taken as endorsing this government’s record on education. IMO this is consistently its worst failing. They’ve been simultaneously incompetent, prejudiced and mean. You’re right – we’ll pay for this for many years.