Monday, August 27, 2007

Annual guide delivers findings

STUDENTS at smaller universities were more likely to give their teachers a tick and be satisfied with their university experience, but student-staff ratios were likely to be better at a Group of Eight university, according to the latest Good Universities Guide.

The annual guide, released yesterday, draws on commonwealth data and student feedback to rate universities on a five-star system.

It is no surprise that the Go8 universities led in research grants. But the University of Wollongong, which has been edging ahead on research, replaced the research-intensive Go8 member Monash in a five-star box for "research intensity".

The guide compares universities' performance on a range of measures, including graduate employment and salaries, international enrolments, staff qualifications and cultural diversity.

This year a new category was added: access by equity groups.

On this measure, Central Queensland University, James Cook, Murdoch, Southern Cross, Tasmania, New England, and the universities of South Australia, Southern Queensland and Western Australia received five stars.

Domestic fee-paying courses ranged in price from $16,100 in the humanities to more than $200,000 in medicine.

Murdoch, Notre Dame and Southern Cross universities were the most affordable for business and management full-fee courses. Ballarat, Edith Cowan and Southern Cross had the lowest fees in computing and information technology. For engineering and technology, Ballarat, Macquarie and Murdoch had the lowest fees. Australian Catholic University, Flinders and Sunshine Coast were the most affordable in humanities and social sciences, and in sciences, ACU, ECU and Notre Dame had the lowest fees.

Universities were quick to seize on favourable findings yesterday to promote their institutions.

Bond University was among those that did the sums: it claimed it had the most five-star ratings of any university.

"The stellar performance by the private, not-for-profit Bond University in Queensland saw it receive the maximum five-star rating in an unrivalled 10 key performance indicators, including a clean sweep of the educational experience and graduate outcomes categories," it said in a statement.

It didn't mention that it only received one star on several other measures, including access by equity groups and indigenous participation.

Overall enrolments were up this year in medicine, dentistry, pharmacy. Languages had the biggest drop in enrolments in the past year, down 33.3 per cent, along with surveying, which fell 25 per cent.

Salaries were up in architecture, paralegal studies, dentistry and surveying. Graduates of medicine, dentistry, surveying and pharmacy had the best employment prospects.

Dorothy Illing | August 15, 2007
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22246469-25918,00.html

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