Nelson's higher education changes act to block the path out of poverty

These scholarships are an improvement on not having any additional support but are inadequate in terms of the number available, the value of the support, and the time at which they are provided.

There are more than 121,000 students from low-income families enrolled in our public universities.

The scholarships will only assist a fraction of these with about five out of every six poor students missing out.

And, at a rate of $2,000 a year, these scholarships still fail to bring the incomes of students receiving Youth Allowance and Austudy payments above the poverty line.

The accommodation scholarships for rural students at a rate of $4000 a year will have a more substantial impact but, again, four out of five rural students will miss out.

In any case, these scholarships are an inadequate "equity program" because they are only provided to those few disadvantaged students who continue to aspire to a university education at the end of their secondary schooling.

They are not sufficient to encourage a student to attend university, helping those who have already decided, and only those with very high academic merit.

Much more needs to be done to assist students from disadvantaged backgrounds at earlier points of their school life to encourage them to consider going on to higher education.

Other barriers relating to not having parental or peer support, unclear employment pathways, or a lack of academic confidence are ignored by the government's package.

A comprehensive approach to improving equity in our universities would also need to address some of the failings of our social security system, such as:

• Too few students from poor families being eligible for Youth Allowance because the cut-off point for parental incomes is too low.
• Low-income mature-age people who are studying to improve their job prospects receive around $80 a week less in benefits than if they are receiving unemployment benefits.
• Assistance for many jobless families actually falls during the teenage years. This adds to pressure to get work early and to forgo an education that could provide a better route out of poverty in the long run.

The government's higher education review was an opportunity to make serious inroads to the problem of social polarisation on our university campuses.

Instead, another path out of poverty for poor and disadvantaged Australians looks set to be blocked.