Women from poorer backgrounds outperformed their peers, exposing major flaws in the myth that lower socioeconomic students ‘dumb’ down university standards.
In fact, the underprivileged sexes have outstripped their privileged peers every year, for the past five years, according to University of Southern Queensland census data.
The findings show tertiary benchmarks are dependent on undergraduate exit not entry standards, with claims lower socioeconomic students drag down a university’s standing, unfounded and elitist.
Students from disadvantaged backgrounds in fact face identical assessments and pathways, and are required to meet the same academic rigour as their more financially stable cohorts.
But while they face the same testing, and carry similar potential, they behave differently, requiring additional support and training at added cost.
The surest way to preserve the elite status quo is to recruit underprepared students, fail to meet their needs and then look smugly on as they drop out or fail in large numbers, as is the case with many universities who maintain high entrance scores.
Just over one-third of USQ’s students are from disadvantaged backgrounds, with enrolments for both men and women rising steadily each year.
Women from lower socioeconomic areas are a significant emerging market, growing at 173% over the past five years.
Further breakdown shows that of the 4848 students from disadvantaged backgrounds enrolled at USQ last year, 3079 were female.
The stats also show that when it comes to women versus women, lower socioeconomic females have a 79% pass rate, compared to 73% of their more financially fortunate sisters.
In fact, it is the higher pass rate of at-risk women which actually lifts the overall performance of students from lower socioeconomic circumstances, as men from disadvantaged families actually trail their male colleagues, 70% to 75%.
Performance standards and growth rates come in response to the Bradley Report, which identifies lower socioeconomic students as a growth source for meeting 2025 national tertiary targets.
More than 80,000 students nationwide are from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, with Western Sydney, Charles Sturt, Newcastle and Griffith universities housing the highest number, according to 2010 figures from the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.
Out of the nation’s 38 higher education institutions, USQ has the 7th highest number of students coming from disadvantaged backgrounds.
USQ sees students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds as a reputable growth sector for cultural diversity and economic prosperity. However not all institutions are quite so welcoming.
A Bradley Review push to “at risk” student enrolments has met with considerable opposition from Sandstone institutions which have perpetuated the myth that these students undermine standards.
But what these facilities fail to recognise, or service, are the additional needs of such students effectively setting them up for failure, creating a self-fulfilling prophesy.
And this is to be expected if a student is selected for entry primarily on an assessment of their skills as independent learners.
OP1-5 students do achieve success predictably and reliably regardless of their backgrounds or, very much, to the quality of teaching to which they're exposed; and this is very much their appeal.
Students with lower entrance scores, on the other hand, require more hands on support.
USQ has a variety of programs to sustain and nurture lower socio economic students, including the allocation of a Student Relationship Officer to each undergraduate.
The Student Relationship Officer (SRO), a staff member, acts as a “Guardian Angel” not only assisting studies, but providing a basis for the university to better understand the needs of its students and develop strategies to serve those needs.
Automated marker systems within USQ’s online study hub allow SROs to track progress, providing opportunities for early intervention and support before students fall behind.
The cost of such programs can be expensive in time and resources and requires continual innovation, with failure to implement such strategies leading to increased attrition and failure.
Indeed, this has been seen by universities who have sought for the first time to target lower socioeconomic students for recruitment, rather than recruiting on the basis of high entry scores.
But initial poor performance is not a function of the new, but a reflection of the fact that the learning environment in which they are placed is not meeting their needs.
Given the right support and pathways, a high proportion of students from a broad recruitment base can be successfully navigated through undergraduate study.
As long as pass and completion standards are not compromised, then academic standards do not diminish.
And universities without systems and programs in place to support lower socio economic students need to play catch-up, and cater to the needs of this huge growth sector.
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