Regional higher education institutions contribute significantly to the potential for Australia’s regional communities to develop a sustainable future, a recently released report suggests.

The Federal Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) this month released an ACER report on the characteristics, motivations, experiences and outcomes of students enrolled at higher education institutions in regional areas of Australia.

The report revealed that, five years after completing their courses, 66 per cent of those who were enrolled at regional institutions and are employed are still living in regional areas. Report co-author and ACER Senior Research Fellow, Dr Sarah Richardson said the findings challenge assumptions that most regional students move to the city after graduation.

“We now know that the majority of people who study at a regional higher education institution stay in the area when they graduate,” said Richardson. “This means that higher education provision in regional areas is vital to ensure the sustainable development of regional communities.”

Richardson said that students at regional higher education institutions have different needs to students who study in cities due to differing demographics. Students enrolled at regional institutions are more likely to be female and tend to be older than their metropolitan counterparts. They are more likely to care for dependents and are more likely to be Indigenous.

“Regional students need more flexible modes of education, access to childcare facilities and greater financial support to cope with their caring responsibilities,” Richardson said.

The report examined information from seven national data sources, including the Australian Census, the Australasian Survey of Student Engagement, the Graduate Destination Survey, the Graduate Pathways Survey and the Higher Education Student Collection. It found that:

• Students at regional institutions are equally as satisfied with their studies and engaged as those at metropolitan institutions.
• Regional students feel that their studies prepare them for employment better than metropolitan students, and are more likely to feel that their employability and skills are ‘excellent’.
• Graduates from regional institutions are less likely than graduates from metropolitan institutions to move directly into further study, but equally likely to have done so within five years of completing their course.

Surprisingly, the study found that regional students are less likely to study subjects of direct relevance to regional economies – like natural and physical sciences, engineering or agriculture – than metropolitan students. The dominant areas of study of regional students are management and commerce, health, society and culture and education. Around 29 per cent of students who study in regional areas are employed as teachers in the same region five years after graduation.

Richardson notes that the lack of a targeted study of students who attend regional higher education institutions means that it is difficult to distinguish between students who study in remote areas of Australia and students who study in large regional towns. Despite this difficulty, the research shows that the presence of one or more higher education institutions in a regional area is likely to mean that its workforce is equipped with greater skills and expertise than would otherwise be the case.

The full report, Australian Regional Higher Education: Student characteristics and experiences, by ACER Senior Research Fellow Dr Sarah Richardson and ACER Research Fellow Tim Friedman, is available from http://research.acer.edu.au/higher_education/22/

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