“Lamentable”: Students Reflect on the Equity of ANU Scholarships

By Madeleine Crabtree

Discourse has recently arisen over the equity of the ANU’s scholarships, with this discussion particularly focused around the outreach of the “life-changing” Tuckwell Scholarship. See here if you would like to read more about this conversation.

This comes after current Tuckwell Scholar, Will Cassell, launched a petition, calling on the Board of the scholarship to “address the systemic barriers for students from low-income and disadvantaged backgrounds to receive this scholarship”. 

This was in light of data revealing that 72 percent of its recipients had come from schools in the most affluent quartile of Australia. 

Observer has spoken to current students at the ANU, to hear their thoughts on the equity of the Tuckwell Scholarship and other scholarships at the university.

The majority of students felt that the Tuckwell Scholarship is currently not equitable. When asked what could be done to increase the accessibility of the scholarship, many suggested introducing quotas and some form of a financial means test, with one student saying that there should be “some form of requirement where the candidate demonstrates why they need this scholarship to pursue what they otherwise could not”.

Another student raised concerns over the scholarship’s in-person interview, to which fifty shortlisted applicants are invited. They labelled it as “wildly inaccessible to people who are low-SES and from more regional/rural parts of Australia,” noting that even when reimbursements are provided, it is still incredibly hard for people who do not have the money for initial payment of travelling costs. 

However, one student suggested that introducing quotas for low-SES students would not “fix the problem”, and that it is a lot harder for these students to meet the ATAR requirement for the scholarship, which is 95 or higher. They further claimed that the scholarship is “word of mouth”, therefore not advertised widely to students from public schools. 

Some students felt it was not necessary to make the Tuckwell Scholarship more equitable. One said it was already “far more equitable than most merit-based scholarships in that it considers factors beyond just ATAR”, with a “qualitative” selection process. 

One suggested that from the university’s perspective, this scholarship is the “ANU’s highest incentive to win the nation’s top students”, and that it is systemic and inevitable that these will come from the wealthiest schools on average.

Some referred to pre-existing scholarships for students from low-SES and low-income backgrounds, for example the Kim Jackson scholarship, aimed to support an engineering student identifying as a woman who resides in a regional or remote area.

“The Tuckwell Scholarship was not designed to address these barriers, nor should it be fundamentally altered to do so,” said one student. Rather, they suggested there is a need to discuss issues such as rising on-campus accommodation costs in deterring young adults from accessing a university education.

Many students shared this view when discussing the reason as to why the ANU has such a low proportion of low-SES students. The university published a report in 2022 indicating that students from low-SES and low-income backgrounds formed only around 4 percent of the total undergraduate population, the lowest out of any university in Australia.

Students suggested that the impact of this is the creation of a “campus culture that makes low-SES students feel like they don’t really belong”. One student recounted their own experience: “as a low-SES and regional student, I struggle to feel accepted, safe, and able to fully enjoy the ‘fun and social’ side of ANU.” 

One student suggested that this statistic exists because Canberra is “geographically isolated”, and that it is harder for people to move here to study unless they are being supported by their parents, meaning there is “almost no chance someone from a low-SES background can attend ANU”. 

Another said that though the lack of low-SES students is “lamentable”, they felt that “in part it reflects deeper demographic facts and problems rather than a specific failing of the ANU”. They argued it would be placing a “differential burden on the ANU to support poorer students as compared to other universities”, when failing to consider that different universities have different sets of demographic facts.

It seems that most students feel there is a long way to go in making the ANU more accessible to a wider range of students from all socioeconomic backgrounds. They also feel that there is still a lot of work to be done to create an inclusive environment for all students to feel comfortable and welcome in. 

More to come.

Graphics by Anushkaa Ahuja

Disclaimer: Will Cassell is also a reporter at ANU Observer

---

Know something we don’t know? Email news@anuobserver.org or use our anonymous tip submission.

If you have an issue with this article, or a correction to make, you can contact us at news@anuobserver.org, submit a formal dispute, or angry react the Facebook post.

If you don’t have an issue with this article and want to hear more from us, we’re in the process of making a newsletter! Sign up here, and have the latest news delivered directly to you. 

Want to get involved? You can write articles, photograph, livestream or do web support. We’re also looking for someone to yell “extra!” outside Davey Lodge at 1AM. Apply today!