University funding freezing may cause the education gap between regional and urban Australian students to widen.
Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham stated last year that funding to Commonwealth-supported universities would be capped for two years, freezing funding in 2017.
About twenty-percent of regional students have degrees, compared to forty-percent in the cities, while Dr Caroline Perkins, executive director of the Regional Universities Network, says they are a generation behind major cities and have a long way to catch up.