Expenditure on education and training in Australia: update and analysis

This report is an annual update of Mitchell Institute's analysis of Australia's expenditure in education and training across the school, vocational education and training (VET) and higher education sectors. Last year's report highlighted the disparities in expenditure between the sectors, in particular the significant rise in school and university expenditure over the last decade and the comparatively lower rate of growth in spending in the VET sector. This year, [the authors] see this imbalance continue to grow, to the extent that VET expenditure in 2014-15 fell below expenditure levels 10 years earlier, in real terms. [The authors] also incorporate expenditure in the preschool sector into this year's report, as well as re-visiting the expanding income contingent loan program in the higher education and VET sectors.

Key findings: higher education expenditure increased 45 per cent over a 10 year period to 2014-15; school education expenditure increased 24 per cent between 2005-06 and 2014-15; VET sector expenditure in 2014-15 was 4 per cent below the level in 2005-06; preschool expenditure in 2014-15 increased 125 per cent over the period, coming off a much lower base since 2005-06; and in 2014, income contingent loan programs continued to expand, largely coming from the growth of the VET FEE HELP scheme which is to be replaced in 2017 by more restricted VET Student Loans.

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