Federal Education Minister Jason Clare said the government was also taking action to boost the number of students from regional areas or poorer backgrounds who attend university.
“Only 15 per cent of people from poor families have a university degree today, and it’s even lower if you are Indigenous,” Mr Clare said.
“We all pay a price for this: the cost of all these kids missing out.”
The reforms are being announced at the National Press Club today to coincide with the interim report from a panel of experts tasked with transforming Australia’s university sector.
The changes come as an ABC analysis of student enrolment data reveals some of Australia’s richest universities do the poorest job at recruiting Indigenous students.
First Nations students made up just 2.06 per cent of domestic university enrolments nationally — well below population parity, with census data showing 3.8 per cent of Australians are Indigenous.
And at Australia’s most prestigious institutions, the figures are even lower, with Indigenous students representing little more than 1 per cent of domestic students at the elite Group of Eight (Go8) universities.
The Go8 is made up of the University of Melbourne, the Australian National University, the University of Sydney, the University of Queensland, the University of Western Australia, Monash University, the University of Adelaide and UNSW Sydney.
While results for some states, such as Victoria, are likely lower because of the overall lower number of Indigenous residents, a clear trend emerges where many of the most prestigious inner-city universities trail their outer-suburban peers.
Kyiesha Faulkner, a Gommeroi woman and recent university graduate, said the sector could do more to assist Indigenous students.
“I think they need to have a better understanding of our culture and what that means for us,” she said.
“Where our priorities lie sometimes, whether that be with family or sorry business or different things that we have going on.”
The funding guarantee previously only applied to First Nations students in regional and remote areas, but the government will expand it to all Indigenous people who are eligible for the course they apply for.
Mr Clare said the changes could double the number of Indigenous university students within a decade.
Government moves to improve student equity
Mr Clare commissioned an expert panel to examine higher education reforms as part of what the government calls a once-in-a-generation university accord.
More and more jobs will require university-level qualifications in the years ahead, and more students will need to come from outside Australia’s major cities, the report states.
The panel has called for five immediate changes, all of which the government has agreed to implement.
Mr Clare said the number of Commonwealth-supported university students was predicted to double from roughly 900,000 to 1.8 million by 2050.
“This report says the only way to really do this is to significantly increase the number of university students from the outer suburbs and the regions. Students from poor backgrounds. Students with a disability. Indigenous students,” he said.
The report also suggests wider reforms for broader issues in the sector, but the government will not make a decision on those until the panel delivers its final report in December.
However, the federal opposition said the changes focus far too much on university places rather than student outcomes.
Shadow Education Minister Sarah Henderson also criticised the government’s plan to scrap the rule stripping students of funding if they failed more than half their subjects.
“That will mean that more and more students will be forced to stay in degrees incurring higher and higher HECS debts, which will have very, very damaging consequences,” she said.abc.net.au/