Budget 2009 delivers a quality investment in tertiary education and will assist polytechnics and universities to meet cost pressures.

The total amount of funding for tertiary education in Vote Education will increase from a 2008/09 baseline of $2.66 billion to $2.78 billion in 2009/10.

�In this Budget, the Government�s focus for tertiary education has been to maintain funding for expected growth in student places in 2009 and 2010,� Tertiary Education Minister Anne Tolley says.

�Additional funding will be provided to Tertiary Education Organisations as agreed in their investment plans. 

�Pressure on course subsidies will also be addressed by an inflation-adjustment in 2010. This will provide $127 million of extra funding to the tertiary institutions over four years. This commitment was not funded by the previous Government.

�The previous Government made a number of other significant promises in tertiary education that they did not fund in last year�s Budget. This Government has not been able to fund all of these initiatives and Budget 2009 reflects that.

�These include �capability funding�, scholarships for domestic and foreign students, increases to industry-training funds and the development of some new training programmes. 

�The previous Government was not able to fund these initiatives even in the best of economic times,� Mrs Tolley says.