Deferring a University Offer in Rural Australia

Abstract

Atrend of increasing regional disadvantage is suggested in the pattern of rising rates of deferral of university places amongst rural school-completers in Australia. Cost-related factors and financial barriers are prominent in the reasons given by these young people for deferring a place at university. These trends formed the impetus for a study of the destinations of rural school-completers in the Australian state of Victoria, the findings of which are reported in this article. The issue of theoretical and practical interest that this article examines is whether this phenomenon of deferral constitutes a disadvantage for these young people. Are these deferrers ‘lost’ to the system? Do they eventually take up their places? Are some groups less likely to take them up than others? What happens to the rest? Of particular interest is the question regarding what barriers might prevent some groups from taking up their place. And finally, what is the experience of those who enter university? Do they continue and thrive in their studies? This article considers these questions in the context of data outlining the destinations of non-metropolitan deferrers in their second year out of school.

Mapping schools' NAPLAN results: a spatial inequality of school outcomes in Australia

“…Small schools with composite classes (CESE, ) and difficulty in attracting and retaining quality teachers (Kelly & Fogarty, ) also affect primary education. Australians in non‐metropolitan areas have lower than average rates of participation in tertiary education (Polesel, ; Victorian Auditor General, ) and higher levels of poverty (NHRA, ). Poverty and lower educational attainment are particularly significant for most Indigenous students, and especially so for those in remote Australia (Bradley et al ., ; Cuervo et al ., ; Guenther, ).…”

Counselling to stay or to leave? - Comparing career counselling of young people in rural and urban areas

“…However, those discourses and career guidance cannot be considered in isolation, as they are profoundly affected by socio-economic conditions (Farrugia 2019;Polesel 2009;Rosvall, Rönnlund, and Johansson 2018) and various other continuous discourses, regarding (for example) life-long learning (Pépin 2007), career management skills (Hooley et al 2013) and flexibility . Key life-long learning and flexibility concepts are rooted in individualism, since the flexible worker goes where the work is (see Corbett 2010 this journal).…”

University deferrers in metropolitan and non-metropolitan Victoria: A longitudinal study

“…But this still means that about one-third never took up their offer or dropped out soon after doing so. As the academic profile of the regional deferrers is at least as strong as that of their metropolitan peers (Polesel, 2009), we cannot explain this non-participation in terms relating to low achievement. The deferrers from the country are not less clever.…”

“…Its focus is those young people from regional locations and it is intended to identify barriers for to participation in higher education for that group. The research conducted by the authors on deferral has led to a series of commissioned reports for the Victorian government, the first of which was published in 2008, as well as an article published in this journal (Polesel, 2009). This overall body of research has constructed a unique and detailed picture of what happens to non-metropolitan school completers who gain entry to university and defer their offer.…”