University sceptics have distinct reasons for avoiding tertiary education, and distinct strategies are needed to lure them into the fold, research suggests.

A “segmentation” study by the University of Newcastle has found that many young locals do not have tertiary education “on their radar”, for both structural and cultural reasons.

Some people are “optimistically curious” and see value in degrees but are working – often to support young families – and will not incur student debt without guarantees of better employment. Others are “confident by-passers”, also seeing value in university but comfortable that they can get ahead without it.

A third group are “complacent rejectors”, convinced that their supposedly meagre academic abilities will stifle any advantage from tertiary education. A fourth group of “worried sceptics” dislike education and consider university “stressful and not worth the money”.

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Newcastle undertook the research as part of a project to boost higher education attainment rates in the region, in response to a clarion call from the Australian Universities Accord panel.

The accord’s final report recommended a target of 55 per cent of 25- to 34-year-old Australians possessing degrees in 2050 – up from about 45 per cent now – as part of a broader goal of at least 80 per cent of working-age people having tertiary qualifications.

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These targets are particularly challenging in the university’s catchment area, which includes the coal-rich Hunter Valley. Excluding Newcastle, the region’s main city, the Hunter has the lowest university attainment rate in New South Wales. Rates in nearby coastal areas are also well below the state average, according to data compiled from Australian Bureau of Statistics figures.

Disinterest from teenagers is exacerbating the challenge. School leaver enrolments at Australian universities over the past three years were below the researchers’ “lowest case projection” and up to 11 per cent lower than the most optimistic expectations.

Newcastle deputy vice-chancellor Kent Anderson commissioned the research after applications from school leavers suddenly fell well below the university’s predictions in late 2022. “We’re just missing this whole group of students,” he said.

The change was reminiscent of a Covid-era spike in the proportion of young people neither working nor studying. Research suggests that the “” from even a year’s total disengagement from employment and education contributes to lifelong disadvantage.

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“It goes to health, it goes to economic impact [and] a whole bunch of other things,” Professor Anderson said. “We as a community need to worry about it, because…it only takes 12 months until you hardwire in some of these life outcomes.”

But unlike counterparts who were “on the fence” about university – receptive to education but hindered by practical issues such as time availability or access to campus – many of these people had “completely checked out” from work and study. Securing their commitment to two or three years of tertiary education was a daunting task, he said.

The university’s head of brand and reputation, Tina Imig, said the analysis had involved almost 500 locals aged between 16 and 30 with no plans for post-school education. The study had borrowed from  commissioned by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and had “landed on four very similar segments” to the US study, albeit with different proportions of each.

Males dominated all four segments in the Newcastle study, comprising almost three-quarters of the “confident by-passers” group. “They’re really self-assured,” Ms Imig said.

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john.ross@timeshighereducation.com