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Turning american

peter_j
edited July 2006 in architecture
Melbourne University has unleashed its plans for major restructuring of its courses from 2008. Architecture, among other courses, will only be available as a short post graduate degree from 2008. Fresh architectural undergraduates will be fed into a three year Bachelor of Environments before being allowed to undertake a two year architecture degree. Urban Planning, Property and Construction, and Landscape Architecture students will join them in the new one-size-fits-all undergraduate degree.

Currently a commonwealth-subsidised undergraduate architecture place will cost the student $6979 per annum, or $19,250 for a full fee paying position. Post graduate fees this year are $15,750. The time it takes to get an architecture degree (which will now be an M.Arch) from Melbourne will extend due to the changes, netting the university more cash from each student.

It seems to me, who paid about $400 a year in university fees in better times, that the cost of doing architecture at Melbourne is about to shoot up by about 100% (or 40 times as much as I paid in the early '90s in NZ). But surely this can't be the case or the profession would be up in arms - wouldn't it?

Melbourne's head of English, John Frow, is confident that the university is moving the right way, adopting the Ivy League model as federal funding falls away. But he has his reservations: "This is essentially a move towards a full-fee-based education system. The only way around this is if we can generate enough scholarship money to put a lot of people through." Melbourne University currently awards about 300 post graduate scholarships a year, including a sprinkling of privately funded scholarships.

There will be an open day at the Architecture school on Sunday 20 August, 2006, when prospective students will be able to ask questions. Whether anyone will be able to answer them confidently is another story.

THE AGE 17.07.06
MELB UNI - GROWING ESTEEM
THE AGE - A NEW WAY OF LEARNING 10.06.07
UNIMELB SCHOLARSHIPS
ARCHITECTURE FACULTY FAQ

Comments

  • archiprix
    edited January 1970
    I guess this means graduate wages will go up accordingly! :)
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