79 per cent of undergraduate higher education students and 76 per cent of postgraduate coursework students rated the quality of their overall education experience favourably, according to the new results from the 2018 Student Experience Survey (SES). 

Undergraduate students in study areas of Rehabilitation and Veterinary Science ranked their overall education experience the highest with 86 per cent. 

Comparitively, Dentistry was ranked last with the lowest overall experience of 70 per cent. 

Study areas below the 79 per cent undergraduate average included Teacher education, Pharmacy, Business and management, Nursing, Architecture and built environment, Engineering, Computing and Information Systems, and Dentistry.   

Moreover, undergraduate student’s ratings were varied according to their different institutions. 

The quality of entire educational experience was rated the highest by University of Divinity with 92 per cent. University of Notre Dame Australia and Bond University followed with 89 per cent. 

Universities in inner-Sydney such as University of New South Wales, University of Sydney, Macquarie University and University of Technology Sydney were below average with 74.4 per cent, 74.3 per cent, 76.8 per cent and 78.1 per cent respectively. 

However, the study stated that some universities may be ranked higher due to the small number of students as the rankings are “consistent with previous research showing a negative association between institution size and student ratings”. 

The survey also found that almost 20 per cent of undergraduate students considered leaving their course in 2018, due to reasons such as their expectations not being met, lack of academic support and quality concerns.