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Case | HBS Case Collection | December 2010

Financing Higher Education in Australia

by David A. Moss and Stephanie Lo

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Abstract

Even before Australian lawmakers abolished university tuition in 1973, students in Australia had long benefited from low tuition and large government subsidies. By the early 1980s, however, the nation's universities faced growing budget challenges and an apparent shortage of capacity as demand for higher education surged. Policymakers, cognizant of a growing budget deficit as well as a hard-hitting recession, hesitated to provide increased funding to higher education. The debate over how best to finance Australian higher education finally came to a head in the late 1980s, following publication of the Report of the Committee on Higher Education Funding (commonly known as the Wran Report). Although the Wran Committee had considered several potential funding schemes, it ultimately proposed a radical system in which students would pay tuition financed through income-contingent loans provided by the government. The Wran Report proved to be of particular interest to the Australian Prime Minister, Robert Hawke. The government's fiscal position seemed to demand that educational financing be overhauled, but there was no consensus on how best to do this. Could the Prime Minister convince his Australian Labor Party to abandon the free-education plank in its platform? And even if he could, how could he be sure that the Wran Committee's strategy was the right one and that its recommendations were workable? Would following an American model of full tuition for higher education and government-guaranteed student loans make more sense? These were just a few of the questions that the Prime Minister confronted as he contemplated new approaches for financing higher education in Australia.

Keywords: Economic Slowdown and Stagnation; Higher Education; Borrowing and Debt; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Policy; Education Industry; Australia;

Language: English Format: Print 29 pages EducatorsPurchase

Citation:

Moss, David A., and Stephanie Lo. "Financing Higher Education in Australia." Harvard Business School Case 711-047, December 2010.

About the Author

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David A. Moss
Paul Whiton Cherington Professor of Business Administration
Business, Government and the International Economy

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  • Case | HBS Case Collection | February 2016 (Revised March 2018)

    Labor, Capital, and Government: The Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902

    David Moss and Marc Campasano

    In late October 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt felt relieved after months of anxiety and uncertainty. Workers in Pennsylvania's anthracite coal industry had been on strike for five months, threatening to leave eastern cities in the cold without enough heating fuel for the winter. Anthracite workers and business owners had finally reached an agreement after months of stalemate, and anthracite production resumed on October 23. The agreement—the first of its kind—put decision-making power in the hands of a federal commission, appointed by the president and empowered to determine terms of employment and various operational questions in the anthracite region. After a week-long investigation in the mines, the commission began hearing testimony from hundreds of representatives of the workers and their employers, the mine operators. The hearings finally closed in February 1903, after which the commission began formulating its final judgments. Members of the commission knew that their work would set an important precedent for industrial governance in the years ahead. Past U.S. presidents had helped put down strikes that threatened federal property or public safety, but the anthracite strike of 1902 marked the first time the government acted to resolve a strike both without force and without such a clear legal justification. The decisions of the commission would therefore have important ramifications not only for the anthracite industry, but potentially for American business–labor relations more generally. With copious amounts of data, testimony, and research to inform them, the commission members began the process of deciding how an American industry should, and would, operate.

    Keywords: Governance; Agreements and Arrangements; Labor; Mining; Mining Industry; Pennsylvania;

    Citation:

    Moss, David, and Marc Campasano. "Labor, Capital, and Government: The Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902." Harvard Business School Case 716-046, February 2016. (Revised March 2018.)  View Details
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  • Case | HBS Case Collection | February 2016 (Revised February 2018)

    The Battle over the Initiative and Referendum in Massachusetts (1918)

    David Moss and Dean Grodzins

    On Election Day in 1918, Massachusetts voters would have to decide not only on their preferred candidates for governor and U.S. Senator, but also whether or not to approve 19 proposed amendments to the state constitution. By far the most controversial of these would establish a state process of initiative and referendum. The initiative would empower private citizens to write both laws and constitutional amendments, and pass them, even over the opposition of a majority of the state legislature. The referendum would allow voters to rescind laws that the legislature had passed. Behind this proposed amendment lay nearly three decades of agitation, both in the state and nationally, for “direct democracy” in America.
    The initiative and referendum—or “I&R” for short—had become a key demand of progressivism, the diverse movement for economic, social, and political reform that swept the nation for nearly two decades after 1900. By 1918, 19 states, mostly in the West, and hundreds of counties and municipalities, including a number of cities in Massachusetts, had adopted some form of I&R. Opposition to a statewide I&R provision in Massachusetts, however, remained fierce. Opponents claimed it would threaten the rights of minorities, give undue influence to small but well organized interest groups, and place needless burdens on voters. Proponents urged the people to empower themselves and take back control of the state from the “invisible government” of party bosses and corporate lobbyists. Now, with the election approaching, Massachusetts voters would have to decide.

    Keywords: Rights; Government Legislation; Power and Influence; History; Massachusetts;

    Citation:

    Moss, David, and Dean Grodzins. "The Battle over the Initiative and Referendum in Massachusetts (1918)." Harvard Business School Case 716-044, February 2016. (Revised February 2018.)  View Details
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  • Case | HBS Case Collection | February 2016 (Revised January 2018)

    Democracy, Sovereignty, and the Struggle over Cherokee Removal

    David Moss, Marc Campasano and Dean Grodzins

    By the mid-1830s, the U.S. Government and the State of Georgia had for years been pushing the Cherokees to turn all of their territory over to white settlers and move west, yet it appeared that most Cherokees wanted to keep their ancestral homeland. In October 1835, the Cherokee General Council had named a committee of leaders to work out a mutually agreeable solution with the federal government in Washington. At about the same time, however, U.S. Indian Commissioner John Schermerhorn had called a meeting at New Echota, Georgia with a separate committee of Cherokees who he believed would be more willing to “remove” the entire tribe to the West. This separate committee ultimately agreed to the Treaty of New Echota on December 29, 1835. Under the treaty, the Cherokees would cede all of their eastern territory in exchange for $4.5 million, land in the West, and other sundry benefits.
    U.S. President Andrew Jackson, who had battled Native American tribes during much of his former military career, was eager to oust the Cherokees from the eastern states. However, several members of the Senate criticized the Treaty of New Echota as a “phantom treaty,” claiming that it was signed by an illegitimate council without the consent of the Cherokee people. Approving the treaty, they insisted, would be a grave wrong against the Cherokee Nation and its official government, which the United States had long recognized.
    On May 18, 1836, the U.S. Senate finally put the Treaty of New Echota to a vote. If ratified, the treaty would bind all Cherokees to the decisions of the committee at New Echota, and the Cherokee Nation would have to leave its native land.

    Keywords: Governance; Nationality; Ethics; Government and Politics;

    Citation:

    Moss, David, Marc Campasano, and Dean Grodzins. "Democracy, Sovereignty, and the Struggle over Cherokee Removal." Harvard Business School Case 716-051, February 2016. (Revised January 2018.)  View Details
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