What are they studying?
Victoria’s higher education students study in a range of fields and at a variety of levels.
Fields of education
This section considers 14 fields of education, based on the Australian Standard Classification of Education (ASCED).
Figure 9: Victorian higher education students by field of education and
age group, 2004.
Source: DET (Excel - 122Kb),
Table 2.1. Based on first half year data.
As indicated below (Figure 10), management and commerce related courses accounted for over ¼ of enrolments in 2004, while engineering, IT and science accounted for another quarter.
Figure 10: Victorian higher education students by field of education,
2004.
Source: DET (Excel - 122Kb),
Table 2.2. Based on first half year data.
Interestingly, a relatively large proportion of students studying education and nursing were aged over 25 (Figure 9), while agriculture, nursing and education courses had the highest proportions of enrolments from regional Victoria (Figure 11).
IT and management & commerce appeared to be particularly attractive to students from interstate and overseas (Figure 11), with around half of Victoria’s interstate/overseas students enrolling in one of these fields (DET (Excel - 122Kb), Table 2.2).
Figure 11: Victorian higher education students by field of education
and region of permanent home address, 2004.
Source: DET (Excel - 122Kb),
Table 2.2. Based on first half year data.
Levels of education
30% (around 72, 000) of Victoria’s higher education students in 2004 were studying postgraduate courses (DEST, All Students Table 23).
The proportion of postgraduates was particularly high amongst students from interstate and overseas, while students from regional Victoria (i.e. outside of Melbourne) were least likely to be studying at a postgraduate level (Figure 12).
Most postgraduates were studying for a Master’s qualification (Figure 13), and over half were studying part time (Figure 6). Undergraduate students were more likely to be studying full-time.
Figure 12: Students by region of permanent home address and level of
study, 2004.
Source: DET (Excel - 122Kb),
Table 4. Based on first half year data.
Figure 13: Victorian postgraduate students by type of qualification,
2004.
Source: DEST,
All Students Table 23. Based on full year data.
Excludes students at
ACU.
Contact: Higher Education (highered@diird.vic.gov.au)Created on: Friday, November 07, 2003 | Last Updated: December 20, 2006
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