
Australia is doubling fees for arts degrees - brudgers
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200728-why-australia-is-charging-more-to-study-history
======
tropdrop
This "job-ready" talk is a classic example of technology developing a life of
its own (in the widest sense of the word "technology"), corrupting education
specifically to suit its own needs of self-replication. [1]

The lede is a bit buried (and the financial restructuring "very complicated"),
but here's the key insight to how Australia's implementing this:

 _The reforms redistribute these subsidies and changes the amount of funding
that different subjects receive. For subjects like law and the humanities, the
increase in student fees exceeds the decrease in government subsidies, meaning
universities end up with higher fees overall. This is not the case in “job-
ready subjects”, where universities are forced to absorb a shortfall since the
government subsidies do not offset the drop in student fees. This, higher
education professionals argue, means lower per-capita student funding that
will not give universities the resources they need to produce more ‘job-ready’
graduates – and could even back-fire._

I personally concur with this:

 _“I think the idea that you can persuade the student who is interested in
philosophy to go and become an engineer is just not how this is going to
work,” says Joel Barnes, a public history researcher at University of
Technology Sydney._

Of course, spending any time around a college undergraduate quickly shows you
that most students take awhile to understand what their "philosophy" is. This,
in my opinion, is the strength of America's (higher) education system - it is
so flexible that one can decide to switch to philosophy/programming halfway
through their training, once they discover that really is what they liked to
do all along but had just never tried it. This Australian system would,
instead, lock you into a cheaper major regardless of how miserable you are.
Sounds to me like a recipe for a lot of incompetent engineers.

1 - [https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/08/rotten-stem-
how-t...](https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/08/rotten-stem-how-
technology-corrupts-education/)

~~~
Khaine
The thing to remember is that in Australia the Federal Government provides
interest free loans [1] to students to fund their studies. The government also
subsidises university studies. In the past the government has reduced the
subsidy for law and engineering on the basis that people who did these courses
would earn more, and therefore should pay more. Now they have flipped that to
drive students into in demand careers, as there is a shortage. This doesn't
mean that humanities aren't important, but that since the government subsidies
university courses, they are going to invest in whats most important for the
country.

These loans are then automatically taken out of your salary based on earning a
certain amount.

[1] [https://www.studyassist.gov.au/help-loans/fee-
help](https://www.studyassist.gov.au/help-loans/fee-help)

~~~
triceratops
> Now they have flipped that to drive students into in demand careers, as
> there is a shortage.

If those careers were in-demand, shouldn't the wages on offer be enough to
drive students into those careers?

~~~
pb7
You’re giving 18 year olds too much credit. Ask the average college student
what job they’re planning on getting with their degree and how much it pays
and they won’t be able to tell you.

~~~
triceratops
College students may not know precise numbers. But they're sharp enough to
work out "barista with an art degree" makes less than "banker with a finance
degree". And if they don't already know "art degree = low-paying career" we're
failing them before they ever reach college.

~~~
true_religion
A lot of people think art degrees will pay well because they see the explosion
of interest in anime, web illustrations, comics, and graphic novels. They
don’t see the supply side though, so they assume good demand means a good
career path.

------
rexreed
I actually think this is a clever idea. While getting an advanced degree in
humanities is a possibly laudable goal, the truth is that the vast majority of
undergraduates with history majors or art majors will never enter into further
studies in those fields. Rather, they will get underpaying jobs doing menial
tasks.

Getting a degree simply to get a degree is one of the failings of our higher
educational system and the high cost of tuition doesn't usually justify those
degrees.

The perverse disincentive of doubling tuition for degrees with expected low
workforce value might reduce the number of undergraduates who have such deemed
unnecessary degrees in the workplace, but what then do you do with those post-
secondary school students who feel that a college degree is useful, regardless
of what that degree is in?

I think we need a renewal of trade schools, apprenticeship programs, and a
movement to more practical degrees.

Of course if you truly want to study advanced art or literature or history or
theater, there should be a path for that, but the future for those in those
fields are not in high paying jobs, which means that the tuition will very
rarely be returned to the student in the form of wages.

~~~
jclulow
I think it's a pretty rubbish idea if you don't believe the point of life is
to maximise your earnings. What if the point is to lead a good life that you
enjoy on some level, and society is a system in which we perhaps try and
facilitate that for everyone?

~~~
pb7
I don’t see anything wrong with that but then tax payers shouldn’t need to
subsidize your particular goals in life. No one is stopping you from getting
that arts degree, it’s still there for you.

~~~
NamTaf
As an Aussie, I'm pretty happy to subsidise any of my fellow citizens getting
higher education if they want to, because I believe the pursuit of life goals
and in particular life goals in education leads to a societal betterment
overall. Written differently, if someone wants to go and study philosophy even
if they don't believe they'll ever work in the field, I'm happy that my tax
helps to support that because I think that the process of higher education in
itself is a valuable learning experience that helps produce better citizens
within their communities. Higher education - even without directly leading to
a career - can be a very powerful way of lifting people out of generational
poverty traps.

You say that no one is stopping someone getting said degree, however often
without subsidy/support it can be prohibitively expensive and that stops them.
No one person may be stopping them, but systems doing so are no better.

Naturally, that comes with limits, since we are not yet able to function in a
fully automated society where scarcity is abolished. Hence why the Aussie
system caps the subsidised loans you may receive.

edit to add: I also support reducing the societal pressure that a university
degree is the only path to success. I'd like to see much more support and
emphasis placed on practical tertiary education, such as trades and the like.
I think it's all too often an option that people dismiss because they're sold
the lie that university guarantees success.

~~~
wink
I actually think it's kind of a step back. In former times only rich people
could afford to do anything with the arts, this is the first step that only
rich people's kids can study the arts.

I don't personally get why anyone would ever do that, I always hated anything
with art and music in school, but I don't want to stop them going for it. They
need to live with the fact anyway that they might get a lower-paying job in
the end and work in a field that's not related to their degree. But it's their
choice.

------
eindiran
Beyond just the perverse incentives for university administrations discussed
in the article, this would be quite disappointing. The constant push towards
specialization has led to most undergraduate programs losing any liberal arts
rounding, which has some obviously negative impacts (eg the perennially-absent
ethics and history courses for engineers). With a further reduction in the
number of students in the arts and humanities, I imagine this trend would be
pushed significantly further (eg the vast majority of voters having last taken
a history class in secondary school/never having taken a political science
class, school districts following this lead and cutting the already-paltry
funding of the arts and humanities for primary and secondary schools).
Hopefully the lawmakers see that investing in STEM doesn't need to be at the
expense of the arts and humanities.

~~~
quantumwannabe
Many engineering programs require an ethics class already, and many STEM
degrees require TWO YEARS of "liberal arts rounding" classes. I learned
nothing in those classes that I couldn't teach myself, but I sure as hell paid
a lot of money for them. Additionally, every single university student has had
13 YEARS worth of liberal arts education before they've taken their first
university-level class. If 13 years wasn't enough to "round out" a student,
then what good will another few years do?

~~~
pansa2
> many STEM degrees require TWO YEARS of "liberal arts rounding" classes.

Is that true in Australia? I assumed universities in Australia would be
similar to the UK, where all classes are in the chosen subject only?

~~~
Khaine
That is correct, stem degrees in Australia do not include liberal arts
rounding.

~~~
logicchains
It depends on the university; at University of Melbourne they do.

~~~
adamjb
As someone who has gone through the Melbourne Model, I don't know if I'd call
the semester's worth of breadths in the BSc "liberal arts rounding" in the
same sense as people are using it here, mainly because it's a free choice of
subjects outside your degree (and most subjects are available). E.g. it's not
uncommon to take management subjects as an "employable" breadth.

------
chadcmulligan
The annoying part is that most of the politicians have humanities degrees and
are of an age where their degree was probably free in Australia. $40K is a lot
for an arts degree.

Surely a better solution is to provide lots of incentives to get a STEM degree
- more carrot less stick.

I suspect their motivations if their stated goal is to get more STEM
graduates, then this is not the best solution.

~~~
pb7
> $40K is a lot for an arts degree.

Working as intended.

Lower cost for a STEM degree = lower risk in the event that you don’t find a
job. Existing higher relative compensations = bigger carrot.

~~~
chadcmulligan
Humanities is also valuable - history, economics, traditional liberal arts are
all valuable knowledge. I have one of each (B.Sc / B.A.) and a lot of the
stuff I learnt in the BA is very useful, for one thing it gives you the skills
to argue with politicians who are, in the main, lawyers and professional
arguers.

As others in this thread have said, this will reserve humanities degrees for
those that can afford them, i.e. the rich, who will become the lawyers and
managers. Many managers have humanities degrees.

And on a lighter note, where will our baristas come from if there's no arts
graduates?

It would be a poor society that doesn't have people educated in the arts.

~~~
pb7
Humanities won’t go away. At some point, equilibrium will be reached and there
will be an appropriate number of people going into each. Only the foolish
think that liberal arts are completely worthless — but there _are_ too many
people that go into them with no special talent to give them an edge in a very
limited employment market. I know from experience how common it is for people
to decide to go to college because that’s the thing to do, and oh, well I
guess I have to decide on a field to proceed with this so might as well choose
something that my friends are doing. The thinking is backwards. First you have
to decide what you want to do in life, calculate how that will provide for you
financially, then figure out what education you need to get there.

Who knows, maybe there is in fact a B.A. in Gender Studies requirement at my
local coffee shop I don’t know about. ;)

~~~
chadcmulligan
Sure, but, in general, the people doing a BA in gender studies probably won't
make a great addition to the STEM workforce, but the BA will teach them other
valuable skills, and they'll end up in teaching or management or something. To
exclude these people from an education is short sighted in my opinion, the
more educated people we have the better.

~~~
pb7
>the people doing a BA in gender studies probably won't make a great addition
to the STEM workforce

You never know. They _do_ keep demanding diversity. Diversity of thought might
be just the thing.

~~~
chadcmulligan
I think you've made my point - BA's in things you may not think of may end up
being useful, why exclude them?

~~~
pb7
I think we’re in general agreement.

But we already have BAs, presumably mostly folks that are naturally more
geared towards that. And they’re not great for designing planes. So I’m
proposing bringing the next generation of those same types of people, but to
pursue engineering instead. You still need the technical education to do the
work but perhaps it should be more than kids that grew up with Legos is what
I’m saying.

~~~
chadcmulligan
Yah, maybe, this is part of a big picture that I've been thinking about lately
- is the economy there to serve people, or are the people there to serve the
economy. The libs want the dial set very much to the people serve the economy,
and they're taking advantage of the current situation to make it so. I'm more
an economy is there to serve the people, so let's make things so that people
have a good life, and figure out how we can do this.

------
eric4smith
Sounds like a great idea. Increase liberal arts fees and decrease STEM fees.

What could be the consequences good or bad?

Less women doing college - but it's already empirically proven that women
don't really push for STEM (and no, it's not _only_ due to sexism).

Less degrees overall. This is maybe a good thing, since people are going to
college without thinking what they really want to do (not having a plan).

More people doing vocational education, since it's not so easy to go to
college for that arts and humanities degree that you'll be sure to pass.

Finally, waking up people to the fact that it's not so necessary to get a
college degree for most professions on earth anyway.

------
Jedd
Australian tertiary education system is a bit of a mess.

Rather than saying 'the government provides subsidies / loans' \-- it's
preferable to think of this as the _population_ does this, with the government
merely administrating.

In theory the government should reflect the will and interests of the
population, but in Australia that's not the case on most important issues
(climate change, fossil fuel usage, renewables, health, etc) and there's no
evidence to suggest they've got it right with this decision.

Trying to guess what the job market will look like in 10-30 years from now,
and fiddling with deferred monetary incentives today, sounds like hubris.

HECS - university fees - came (back) in around 1990, initially a flat rate of
A$1800 per student per degree. Naturally this number has risen steeply over
the last three decades.

Interestingly many of our politicians obtained their qualifications when
tertiary education was effectively free (1974-1990).

This, along with considering breakdown of what subjects our politicians
actually studied at university [1], should be considered as they blithely toy
with the long term social and economic effects of coaxing people into career
pigeon holes.

[1] [https://www.torrens.edu.au/blog/business/what-degrees-do-
min...](https://www.torrens.edu.au/blog/business/what-degrees-do-ministers-in-
australia-have-and-why-it-matters-guess-the-top-3)

~~~
austinl
> " _Rather than saying 'the government provides subsidies / loans' \-- it's
> preferable to think of this as the population does this, with the government
> merely administrating._"

I think this is true of all public spending in some sense. Governments don't
_have money_. Rather, the population does, and via taxation, the government is
able to administer it how it chooses, for better or worse. Hopefully for the
better, of course.

~~~
Jedd
Yes, absolutely.

In some cases the distinction's less compelling, say defence, where
individually I'm unlikely to notice the budget allocation, let alone how that
expenditure is sliced up. It's still fair to say that it's the collective's
money, but government budgeting for it is just not scrutinised in the same
way.

Also, with education it's fundamentally different as almost everyone goes
through some part of the education sector at some point in their lives.

In Straya we have about 1.5 million people in tertiary (university, colleges,
etc) education today. This is a large chunk out of of the 25m population.

Consider also that we have 13.5m tax payers, and about 17m eligible voters
(and voting is compulsory here).

I feel that _' the government spends this money'_ distracts us from the
provenance and accountability for these crucial and significant social
decisions.

------
dirtyid
So humanities and the power to dictate culture will be further reserved for
the wealthy and privileged? Alternatively, humanity degrees fees should be
quadrupled, but 3/4 of slots should be reserved for average income households
who gets to attend for free.

~~~
solresol
As one of the other commenters mentioned, university in Australia is
relatively affordable. The government subsidises most of it, and the bit
that's left over is deducted from your salary by your employer until it's paid
off. The news article is about the change to how much subsidy there is.

Who gets the slots available in a course is dictated by the students' results
in the final exams in high school. (This is approximately true: in NSW several
exams before the end of high school also count. Some universities will offer
places based on the "other" high school exams if they can predict what your
final exam result will be with sufficient accuracy.)

The student with the highest marks gets the place they want, and then the next
student down gets their first preference, unless it is full, in which case
they get their second, third, fourth, preference. And so on down through all
the student candidature.

Theoretically this whole system should let a sufficiently capable average
income student study humanities (or whatever they want).

In practice there are problems -- some schools have teachers who are very good
at getting good marks for their students in the final exam; actually being
intelligent and creative doesn't really help as much as it should -- but it's
not an overly terrible system.

~~~
deecewan
This is the entire point - people see this as a strict increase in out-of-
pocket costs for people.

It's a reduction of subsidies, to maximise the government's ROI.

Plus, you still get a tax-free (although indexed) loan. If you want to do arts
and/or humanities, you definitely can. Your loan, which you don't pay a cent
of until a certain salary, and then only a percentage of your salary after
that, will just be larger.

~~~
dragonwriter
> It's a reduction of subsidies, to maximise the government's ROI.

Except, weirdly, the reduction in subsidy is _less_ than the increase in fees,
so institutions will get _more_ money (fees + subsidy) for the not-job-ready
degrees, while getting _less_ for the job-ready degrees. Which makes no sense
at all.

------
giantDinosaur
Let's be honest: the quality of humanities degrees in Australia is bad.
_Could_ they be good, and challenging, and actually useful? Of course - but I
doubt you get this anywhere in Australia for undergrad. The bad thing here
isn't the doubling of fees for mostly useless (and I mean intellectually
useless - I couldn't care less if something isn't really directly relevant to
a job) majors - it's the state of those majors in the first place. It pains me
to see the lack of real rigorous and critical thinking present in undergrad
classes, and the assessments are often a joke.

~~~
christophilus
> It pains me to see the lack of real rigorous and critical thinking present
> in undergrad classes

This is not a new phenomenon. I went to university in the US 20 years ago.
Very few students ever thought to question the narrative they were hearing.
Critical thinking was not taught where I went to school unless you were in a
hard science. And from what I see around me today, it’s still not being
taught.

~~~
garbagetime
How good is the critical thinking that's taught in the hard sciences? My
assumption would be that it's quite limited there, too - present only to the
extent that it absolutely has to be for good science to be carried out.

It seems that critical thinking is generally seen (by whatever system is in
charge) as an ugly thing, which, in some cases, must unfortunately be allowed
to rear its head, so that progress can be made. Critical thinking is really
quite a natural thing for humans to do, but it is for the above reason that it
is largely stamped out of us by the school system.

------
hogFeast
Sky-high wages and low immigration were probably big factors here. Either way,
there are alternatives:

Give kids more vocational stuff to do at school. Most children grow up with
almost no understanding of the world of work.

Improve the humanities courses. Suggesting that they offer no workplace skills
is nonsense. If you go to a good uni, you get skills that are useful in
business. Simple.

Make university low-cost - why does it need to take so long? why does it need
to cost so much? Make it more expensive really helps no-one. If you made a bad
choice, you are now more fucked. The price mechanism doesn't work with
education (ironically, this may have been clear if policy-makers had more STEM
education...or is economics a social science? Who knows?).

Most of these effects are because humanities courses matriculate way more
students than STEM, entrance to STEM is often controlled by trade bodies, the
students have different goals, and more lower quality institutions do more
degrees with more students that get thrown into humanities.

University is not the be-all...if you study history, that shouldn't really
limit your career in any way. There are countries that turn out masses of STEM
grads and haven't taken over the world (India, China's "engineer mindset"
amongst its political leaders is also infamous). I am in the UK, and most
people who do STEM degrees end up doing something non-STEM related to actually
make money (either CS or finance)...most STEM jobs here actually pay poorly
(most engineers earn the average salary, staying in academia in a STEM field
is career suicide).

It is great headline but I suspect it will achieve little.

~~~
deecewan
Low cost, low quality university is often the reason why the masses of STEM
grads from India haven't taken over the world (as well as a healthy touch of
racism).

This is in Australia, where not only do you get tax free (but indexed) loans
for university, but the government also provides a "Commonwealth Supported
Place" \- they cover half the fees, and then you get your tax-free loan for
the other half.

This is entirely just trying to maximise ROI for the government. If people
want to do an arts degree, they are able to, and will still get the tax-free
loan. But the loan will be higher, because the government is less willing to
subsidize degrees that have a lower likelihood of high income.

------
bobthechef
Two points:

1\. The "job emphasis" of higher education is out of control. That is not the
primary purpose of higher education. The proper end of education is the
education of the human person, not the production of a workforce. We are
savages with a pinch of technical savvy perhaps, but nonetheless savages. Of
course, savages make good slaves, even when they're rebelling. Of course, one
must know the end of human life to be able to know the end of education. From
this observation, we are led to, the second point...

2\. Sadly, most universities are wholly incapable of implementing a sound
curriculum . Sure, the humanities are being measured by their industrial
utility, but the humanities aren't blameless. If you thought the amount of
garbage the STEM fields put out is jaw-dropping (it is), then I invite your to
meet the humanities. The humanities have been slipping into decadence for some
time and have become victims of ideological corruption.

------
foobar1962
I overheard some students at a uni talking, one said they were doing a
photography degree. They later qualified that they are studying the _history_
of photography. So they weren’t learning how to do something, they were
learning about other people doing that something in the past.

I wondered about their future earning potential, and where they would work.

~~~
triceratops
Are you sure "history of photography" was the degree, rather than about a
single subject or course? If you were studying for a photography degree, I
could see you needing to study history of photography for a semester.

------
kevindong
You can see the actual brackets/tiers on pages 17 and 18 here:
[https://www.dese.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/job_ready_gra...](https://www.dese.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/job_ready_graduates_discussion_paper_1.pdf)

------
LaundroMat
It reminds me of Reagan who spoke of "certain intellectual luxuries we can do
without" and that taxpayers should not be asked "to subsidize intellectual
curiosity".

Where I'm from (Belgium), there's also a tendency to focus more on educating
for jobs instead of stimulating human curiosity and knowledge.

It's the same type of people who advocate progress and innovation, and just
don't see how moulding people's education to an existing situation is counter-
productive to their hopes for progress.

It's also the type of people who pay lip service to agile development methods,
but cannot stand the insecurity of not knowing what the outcome will be.

We're living in times where many people fear being unproductive or producing
something only to discover that is has no immediate value. Instead of moving
us forward, such fears bring us to a standstill.

------
tamrix
This is somewhat inaccurate. The government pays for half the cost of a degree
for Australian citizens. Then you pay back the other half in tax, interest
free but with inflation but only when you earn over a certain amount of money.

The cost isn't doubling. The government isn't covering half the cost of the
degree.

------
throwaway69123
When these degrees are tax payer funded the cost of said degrees should be
index'd proportional to the historic rate of payback from past people doing
these degrees.

Hear countless anecdotes of people saying they used their arts degree to get a
professional job, so this sort of indexation shouldnt be a problem

------
abiogenesis
> A cheaper degree in an area where there’s a job is a win-win for students

Uh, it also means a lose-lose for other students.

------
sandoooo
Far as I can tell, the government has several levers that they are pulling/not
pulling here (somebody correct me if I'm wrong, I'm just getting this out of
news articles, not primary sources):

\- they are partially directly subsidizing the cost of degrees for domestic
students. The extent of subsidy has not changed in the new policy. (questions:
is the direct subsidy the same for all degrees? do arts currently get more or
less than STEM?)

\- they set the fees that universities are allowed to charge students. In the
new policy, the allowed fees for humanities have doubled, the allowed fees for
STEM has decreased.

\- also, there is HECS/HELP, which is a scheme where all domestic students
(not PR/exchange) are allowed an interest-free, CPI-indexed loan that is only
paid back slowly when the student's wages go beyond a certain threshold. This
is for the full cost of the entire degree, and is a big part of why students
tend to be price-insensitive.

\- fees for international students are roughly 5x domestic students, and they
don't get HECS/HELP. They are basically subsidizing the entire system. The
covid situation has dried up this revenue stream and now the unis (who have
not been financially prudent during the fat years) are deep in the red, with
rumors of bankruptcy starting to circulate.

editorializing:

1\. Arts and humanities are bad choices _if you 're already poor_. If you're
from a rich family it's actually pretty great - light course load, personal
growth, better male/female ratio, etc. If you're poor and you do arts, you
will have trouble getting a job. People should be allowed to choose whatever
degree they want, but the government shouldn't subsidize bad choices.

2\. The government seems to be implementing this in a suboptimal way. It seems
that there is a fee increase but no decrease in subsidy (or there's a
mismatch). I would just lower the subsidy for arts/humanities and allow a fee
increase that matches exactly.

3\. I doubt this will produce worse engineers. The engineering degrees in good
unis are heavily sought-after and difficult to get in, and this just increases
the number of applicants, while the number of available places won't change
much. I think the largest effect is unis will spend more on marketing their
arts degrees, since these will be more profitable going forward.

If it leads to the arts departments upping their game to attract students,
it's probably a net plus.

------
unexaminedlife
The article says they're increasing tuition for "courses seen as less vital to
the economy". I have certainly not met all computer scientists obviously. But
what I can say is almost every single arts / humanities graduate that I've
ever met who decided to pursue a career in computers / programming were on
average more qualified for the job than their computer science degree
counterparts.

YMMV...

------
aaron695
I think one shouldn't confuse the destructive nature of the humanities
currently with the schadenfreude of making people pay more to study them.

It's really hard to know how this will play out. The higher fees for instance
is an argument the faculties should get more money and because Australian
students can defer all payments of fees only on CPI it might not change
numbers much.

------
Gatsky
The Government has a somewhat anti-University agenda. This isn't necessarily a
bad thing. Universities in Australia have drastically grown in size over the
last 20 years, funded by international students. The other trend seems to be a
lot of lightly employed people doing graduate degrees which are pretty
lucrative for the Unis. Almost everyone I know is doing some kind of diploma,
MBA, masters, PHD etc etc. I think in at least a non-trivial proportion of
these cases, they do it because they can't get a good enough job or enough
hours of work. It feels like everyone is over-educated and underemployed. Not
clear any of this over-training leads to better job prospects. Feels like an
example of the meritocratic trap [1].

They make ends meet because Australia has free healthcare, and the previous
generation is very wealthy and can support them. This only lasts one
generation of course.

There seems to be a dearth of opportunity for young professionals. On the one
hand you have people in their 60s - 70s working longer, because they earn a
LOT (eg > $300K a year as well established doctors, lawyers, accountants). The
pay scales in government jobs also mean senior people can earn huge amounts
just by virtue of being around for a long time (ie close to double what
someone 20 years younger would earn for doing essentially the same thing). On
the other hand you have young professionals who can't get a decent job, with
ever more candidates piling up behind them.

I am not sure about the idea of a STEM shortage in Australia. Is this broadly
true? The last mechanical engineer I spoke to quit to become a java programmer
because he couldn't get a job. On the other hand a guy I know in Fintech hired
out the whole team from overseas, there wasn't anyone with .NET experience
locally. Boeing has a software shop and they used to hire a lot of engineers,
not sure what they do now. It's puzzling. I suspect there are some social
effects at play that are restricting labour market mobility and also that
universities are not well aligned with the labour market. One thing I
definitely notice - there is a real lack of highly technical startups here.
Apparently venture capitalists in Australia are not the best. 'I wouldn't piss
on them if they were on fire' was one comment I heard about local VCs.

[1]
[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/09/meritoc...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/09/meritocracys-
miserable-winners/594760/)

