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Weakening the brand: changes to accreditation threaten to further erode the idea of the University.

Article Excerpt
In early June, Melbourne University's Council announced it was winding up the activities of its troubled commercial offshoot, Melbourne University Private (MUP). MUP was established in 1988 in response to the growing demand for customised corporate- and client-driven full-fee paying higher education, a market that Melbourne University's then Vice Chancellor, Alan Gilbert, claimed the public university was prevented from competing in due to excessive federal regulation.

From its inception, MUP was mired in controversy, including financial difficulties and concerns over the institution's involvement in a Department of Defence contract to train Indonesian military officers. The central debate around MUP's existence, however, was its status as a wholly owned commercial subsidiary of Melbourne University, dependent on the public institution for much of its quality assurance and many of its academic staff, with little research profile, seeking to operate in its own right using the term 'university' in its title.

Melbourne University's management cited financial losses estimated at $20 million in its decision to close MUP. It could be argued that the Federal Government's reforms to higher education, championed by MUP and its backers, also played a major role in the institution's demise in that they allowed MUP's activities to be undertaken as part of the University's core operations.

That our public universities have undergone major changes over the last decade resulting in the corporatisation of many of their functions is widely accepted. While these shifts can be traced back to the changes introduced by the Labor Government in the late 1980s, they have been particularly pronounced under the Coalition.

Under the Howard Government, the Commonwealth's retreat from its obligation to properly fund higher education in favor of financing from private sources has become a stampede. Most recently, in 2003, the Federal Education Minister, Dr...

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