VU joins Alliance 2050 to advocate for students, universities and the future

Victoria University (VU) has announced it is a founding member of Alliance 2050 – a group of nine universities whose collective voice will focus on students, equity and community impact in direct response to the Australian Universities Accord.

The Alliance is committed to achieving the national goal of increasing tertiary attainment to at least 80 per cent of the working-age population by 2050, to ensure that all Australians have the opportunity to obtain the knowledge and skills they will need for a brighter future. Reaching this target promises to add $240 billion to Australia’s economy by 2050. 

VU Vice-Chancellor Professor Adam Shoemaker said the Alliance is a significant step forward towards a perception shift among policy-makers and the public.

“We see strong alignment between the Alliance’s proposed mission and our own position as a proudly dual-sector, equity-led and public purpose institution,” Professor Shoemaker said.

One of our key calls to action as part of this new alliance would be to ask the Federal Government to broaden its definition of ‘equity’ to include First-in-Family students.”

VU has the highest percentage of students from an equity background and first in family among all metropolitan universities – 41.3 per cent of our higher education students are the first in their family to go to university, and 52.8 per cent of our VET students are from similar equity backgrounds.

“They are amazing success stories. The term ‘equity’ should equate to the unleashing of talent and opportunity. It is about saying ‘yes’ to students who are the first in their families to embark on post-secondary study – not about saying ‘no’ to their futures,” Professor Shoemaker said.

2050 Alliance CEO Paul Harris said that the work of the group would be characterised by constructive engagement with government to achieve long-lasting reform.

“We are already working with the new Australian Tertiary Education Commission on our shared goal of a bigger and fairer university system that sets Australia up for the future,” he said. 

Our Alliance will be a leading positive voice for higher education and research policy that benefits all Australians.”