Institutional Funding of Higher Education in Australia. AIR 1991 Annual Forum Paper.

This paper analyzes the relative funding model developed as part of the reorganization resulting from the 1988 Australian Government's White Paper on Higher Education Policy. This reorganization created the Unified National System which has resulted in fewer but larger higher education institutions. The relative funding model is described in terms of its origins and principles, including: objectivity, simplicity, fairness, relative funding, applicability to total operating grants, relationship to direct costs, teaching and research components, discipline cost clusters, tolerance band, and special factors. The model's teaching and research components are then explained in more detail. Application of the model at the Footscray Institute of Technology (Victoria, Australia) is detailed, including tables using student load as the basis of resource distribution and planned course enrollment as the measure of student load. Includes four references. (DB)