1. 2016 Completions Preliminary Analysis
Prepared by the Office of Strategic Planning and Information
15 June 2017

2. Summary of CSU Completions - 2016
In the last year, the number of CSU completions have dropped by 1.1% overall with the greatest decline in Bachelor level courses at 13.1%. The largest increase was seen in Postgraduate by Coursework (16.3%).
The overall increase in completions over the past five years is 14.9% with the greatest improvement seen in the Indigenous cohort (76.4%) and a drop of 6.6% in Bachelor level courses.
Scope: Full year CSU Undergrad and Postgrad completions, excluding Undergrad Cross-institutional courses, Other Undergrad courses (including CEP courses), Non Award courses and Higher Degree – Research.

3. Undergraduate Completions

4. Undergraduate Completions by Field of Education
Completions have dropped substantially in the last year in Education (28.6%) with a decline also seen in Management and Commerce (11.1%), Health (8.4%) and Society and Culture (6.0%).
The five year trend also shows a substantial decline in Education (21.3%) and a lesser drop in Management and Commerce (9.4%).
Completions in Society and Culture have remained stable over the past five years.
Completions in Health have risen over the past five years by 6.4%.
Scope: Full year CSU Undergrad completions, excluding Undergrad Cross-institutional courses and Other Undergrad courses (including CEP courses).

5. Undergraduate Completions by Field of Education
Completions have dropped in the last year in Creative Arts (17.8%) with a decline also seen in Information Technology (12.1%).
Completions have remained stable in the last year in Agriculture, Environmental and Related Studies while there has been growth in Natural and Physical Sciences completions (11.8%).
The five year trend shows a substantial decline in Information Technology (37.3%) and a lesser drop in Creative Arts (9.0%).
Completions in Agriculture, Environmental and Related Studies have seen growth of 21.8% over the past five years while completions in Natural and Physical Sciences have grown by 35.7%.
Scope: Full year CSU Undergrad completions, excluding Undergrad Cross-institutional courses and Other Undergrad courses (including CEP courses).

6. Undergraduate Completions by Attendance Mode
Internal students continue to make up a greater proportion of all completions at 57% (down from 59% the previous year, but the same as five years ago).
Completions for internal students have shown a decline of 15.9% in the last year (and 6.6% over the past five years).
Completions for online students have shown a decline of 9.2% in the last year (and 6.7% over the past five years).
Scope: Full year CSU Undergrad completions, excluding Undergrad Cross-institutional courses and Other Undergrad courses (including CEP courses).

7. Undergraduate Completions by Faculty
Completions by internal students within Arts & Ed have decreased by 36.6% in the past year (and 34.7% in the past five years). Within BJBS completions have dropped by 8.4% in the past year (and 10.9% in the past five years) and within Science numbers have dropped by 8.3% in the past year (but increased by 37.7% in the past five years).
Completions by online students within Arts & Ed have decreased by 11.8% in the past year (and remained stable in the past five years). Within BJBS completions have decreased by 6.3% in the past year (and increased by 2.2% in the past five years) and within Science numbers have dropped by 6.7% in the past year (and decreased by 25.0% in the past five years).
Scope: Full year CSU Undergrad completions, excluding Undergrad Cross-institutional courses and Other Undergrad courses (including CEP courses).

8. Undergraduate Completions – Equity Groups
Internal
Online
Equity Group
Completions 2016
Completions 2016 (% of total completions)
1 Year Change (pp)
5 Year Change (pp)
Headcount (% of total headcount from indicative commencing year*)
Australian Indigenous 44
1.7%
0.5
1.4
2.4% 41
2.1%
-0.2
0.05
Low SES
364
14.3%
0.7
3.4
19.2%
401
20.7%
-1.0
1.5
20.4%
Regional / Remote
1059
41.7%
2.6
5.8
56.0%
971
50.1%
0.3
7.8
44.5%
Disability 61
0.1
3.2% 85
4.4%
4.5%
Mature Age (25+)
503
19.8%
-4.2
-7.1
21.4%
1568
80.9%
-0.5
-2.2
84.1%
All equity groups studying internally are under-represented as a proportion of completions when compared to the headcount from the indicative commencing year (2014). The completion rate for Australian Indigenous students, whilst having increased substantially over the last five years, is still below that of other equity groups.
For students studying online, equity groups are more equally represented as a proportion of completions when compared to the headcount from the indicative commencing year (2011).
The largest increase in completions as a percentage of the total is for the Regional / Remote equity group with a 5.8pp increase in the past five years for internal students and 7.8pp increase for online students.
* Completion figures are compared to headcount from the indicative commencing year i.e. 3 years ago for internal courses and 6 years ago for online courses.
Scope: Full year CSU Undergrad completions, excluding Undergrad Cross-institutional courses and Other Undergrad courses (including CEP courses).

9. Undergraduate Completions by Gender
The number of completions by females is substantially higher (at 65% of all completions) for both internal and online study.
The number of completions for internal students has dropped sharply in the last year, by 14.4% for females (3.7% over five years) and 19.1% for males (12.5% over five years).
The number of completions for online students has dropped in the last year, by 11.4% for females (7.0% over five years) and 3.5% for males (5.9% over five years).
Scope: Full year CSU Undergrad completions, excluding Undergrad Cross-institutional courses and Other Undergrad courses (including CEP courses).

10. Undergraduate Completions by Campus
Completions for internal Wagga Wagga students have risen in the last year (by 9.1%) while completions at Port Macquarie have increased from 8 in 2013 to 44 in the most recent year.
The Virtual (Online) campus has experienced a decline of 9.2% in the last year. Internal campuses experiencing the greatest declines in the last year were Albury-Wodonga (26.9%), Orange (26.5%), Bathurst (17.4%) and Other (68.8%).
Over five years, Orange and Bathurst have seen the greatest increase in completions (184.6% and 25.5% respectively) whilst Albury-Wodonga and Dubbo have seen the greatest drop in completions (19.1% and 31.0% respectively).
Virtual (Online) completions also dropped by 6.7% over five years, Other by 70.6% and Third Party by 12.7%.
Scope: Full year CSU Undergrad completions, excluding Undergrad Cross-institutional courses and Other Undergrad courses (including CEP courses).

11. Postgraduate Completions

12. Postgraduate Completions by Field of Education
Completions have increased sharply in the last year in Information Technology (42.9%) with growth also seen in Society and Culture (7.1%).
Completions have dropped substantially in the last year in Education (19.4%) with a decline also seen in Management and Commerce (6.45) and Health (3.6%).
The five year trend shows a substantial increase in completions in Information Technology (145.9%) and growth in Society and Culture (31.1%), Health (18.7%) and Management and Commerce (6.5%). Education has seen a decline over the past five years of 18.6%.
Scope: Full year CSU Postgrad completions, excluding Higher Degree - Research.

13. Postgraduate Completions by Field of Education
Completions have increased in the last year in Creative Arts (16.1%) with growth also seen in Agriculture, Environment and Related Studies (12.9%) and Natural and Physical Sciences (2.3%). Engineering grew from 2 to 33 completions in the last year.
The five year trend shows a substantial increase in completions in Agriculture, Environment and Related Studies (133.3%) and a decline in Creative Arts (24.5%) and Natural and Physical Sciences (13.6%).
Scope: Full year CSU Postgrad completions, excluding Higher Degree - Research.

14. Postgraduate Completions by Attendance Mode
Online students continue to make up a far greater proportion of completions at 69% (up from 63% the previous year and 57% five years ago).
Completions for internal students have shown an increase of 32.0% in the last year (and 250.1% over the past five years). This is accounted for by Study Centre students.
Completions for online students have shown an increase of 10.4% in the last year (and 22.5% over the past five years).
Scope: Full year CSU Postgrad completions, excluding Higher Degree - Research.

15. Postgraduate Completions by Faculty
Completions for internal students have increased substantially within BJBS in the last year (32.7%; and 265% over the last five years). The growth in the faculty can be accounted for by Study Centre courses.
Internal completions in Science have increased by 8.3% in the last year and 225.0% over the past five years. Internal completions in Arts & Ed have increased by 6.3% in the last year but declined by 10.5% over the past five years.
Completions for online students have increased within BJBS in the last year (17.6%; and 31.7% over the last five years).
Online completions in Science have increased by 12.6% in the last year and 59.5% over the past five years. Online completions in Arts & Ed have remained stable in the last year and declined by 4.7% over the past five years.
Scope: Full year CSU Postgrad completions, excluding Higher Degree - Research.

16. Postgraduate Completions – Equity Groups (Online only)
Completions 2016 ((% of total completions)
1 Year Change
5 Year Change
Headcount (% of total headcount from indicative commencing year*)
Australian Indigenous 42
1.5%
-0.3
0.6
1.3%
Low SES
377
13.1%
-0.8
-1.4
13.6%
Regional / Remote
886
30.9%
-1.1
32.5%
Disability 93
3.2%
0.3
Mature Age (25+)
2730
95.2%
-0.5
-1.3
95.4%
For students studying online, equity groups are similarly represented as a proportion of completions when compared to the headcount from the indicative commencing year (2014).
Completions as a percentage of the total have remained relatively stable for all equity groups for the past five years with the greatest change being a decline of 1.4pp for the Low SES group.
* Completion figures are compared to headcount from the indicative commencing year i.e. 3 years ago for online courses (the duration of postgraduate courses is highly variable so 3 years has been selected as an approximate average duration).
Scope: Full year CSU Postgrad completions, excluding Higher Degree - Research.

17. Postgraduate Completions by Gender
The number of completions for internal students is substantially higher for males (at 73% of all completions). These figures are accounted for by Study Centre courses. Male numbers have increased by 35.8% in the last year (326.1% over five years) while female numbers have increased by 22.6% (135.9% over five years).
The number of completions for online students is more evenly distributed with females making up 57% of all completions. Male numbers have increased by 19.8% in the last year (27.5% over five years) while female numbers have increased by 4.5% (19.4% over five years).
Scope: Full year CSU Postgrad completions, excluding Higher Degree - Research.

18. Information/Data Source
Completions pivot (CSU)
Scope
Full year CSU student completions
Undergrad - Undergrad completions, excluding Undergrad Cross-institutional courses and Other Undergrad courses (including CEP courses).
Postgrad - Postgrad completions, excluding Higher Degree - Research
Notes
Due to the Faculty Restructure in 2016, year on year comparisons use the current faculty structure, and as such will be different to Faculty level results published in previous years.
The Internal Postgraduate cohort has not been explored in the same detail as the other cohorts as it reflects the Study Group Australia partnership, which renders many other demographic splits irrelevant.
Further information and resources