It is that time of year when Year 12 students have to make a decision on what university course to go for.
This year there will be more emphasis than ever on attracting students to take on technology related courses because of the continuing international shortage of skilled IT professionals. In Australia last year an estimated 30,000 IT jobs went unfilled.
IT graduates in Australia can expect to earn between AU$35,000 and AU$40,000 a year from their first year after leaving university. This compares with an average of around AU$32,000 to AU$37,000 for a business graduate.
State and Federal Governments have been urging students to tackle up some form of IT study and many of those who take up the challenge will be able to do so from home, thanks the growing number of online degree courses being offered by top universities.
Australian universities are highly regarded internationally and several of the major ones are involved in leading edge international research projects. They are not just confined to IT research because Australia can boast some of the world's leading medical, biotechnology, business and science faculties.
However, they are all turning to new technology and the Internet to offer their wares and, in a growing number of cases, to provide complete courses online.
Australia is a world leader in providing online tertiary education and the University of Southern Queensland was recently named the world's best online university. Two-thirds of its students never step foot on campus.
Australia has at least 40 major tertiary institutions (universities and colleges) and all of them have a presence on the Internet, making it much easier for the prospective student to find exactly the course they want.
Many of them have multiple campuses and the total number of campuses throughout Australia has grown to almost 100, providing prospective students with a wide variety of places to study.
More than 75 per cent of all of our universities are on the eastern seaboard with New South Wales boasting 11 and Queensland and Victoria with nine each (Victoria's includes Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) and Canberra with three universities and the Defence Force Academy.
By comparison South Australia has only three, Western Australia has five, Northern Territory one plus the Bachelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education, and Tasmania has one plus the Australian Maritime College.
For the prospective student selecting the appropriate course can be almost as tough as doing it. Universities compete fiercely for the top students and that usually means offering something different to the university up the road.
Even the standard IT and computer science courses will be dressed up to make them look more appealing -- and not all computing courses are called IT or computer science. In fact, many of them do not even come under the traditional science and technology faculties. For example, media studies is likely to include multimedia; engineering will include software engineering; and business and law can cover a multitude of topics from data mining to e-commerce.
All of the information can be found, or requested online, and an increasing number of the major tertiary institutions such as the University of Queensland are now doing all of their enrolment online, so the next generation of university students can plan and take the next step for their future from the comfort of home.
The following is a complete list of Australian Universities online.
CANBERRA
Australian Catholic University
http://www.acu.edu.au
Australian Defence Force Academy
http://www.adfa.oz.au
Australian National University
http://www.anu.edu.au
University of Canberra
http://www.canberra.edu.au
NEW SOUTH WALES
Australian Catholic University
http://www.acu.edu.au
Charles Sturt University
http://www.csu.edu.au
Macquarie University
http://www.mq.edu.au
Southern Cross University
http://www.scu.edu.au
University of Newcastle
http://www.newcastle.edu.au
University of New England
http://www.une.edu.au
University of New South Wales
http://www.unsw.edu.au
University of Sydney
http://www.usyd.edu.au
University of Technology Sydney
http://www.uts.edu.au
University of Western Sydney (three campuses)
http://www.hawkesbury.uws.edu.au Hawkesbury
http://www.macarthur.uws.edu.au MacArthur;
http://www.nepean.uws.edu.au Nepean
University of Wollongong
http://www.uow.edu.au
NORTHERN TERRITORIES
Northern Territory University
http://www.ntu.edu.au
Bachelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education
http://www.nt.gov.au/batc/
QUEENSLAND
Australian Catholic University McAuley
http://www.acu.edu.au
Bond University
http://www.bond.edu.au
Central Queensland University
http://www.cqu.edu.au
http://www.gu.edu.au
Griffith University
http://www.gu.edu.au
James Cook University
http://www.jcu.edu.au
Queensland University of Technology
http://www.qut.edu.au
University of Queensland
http://www.uq.edu.au
University of Southern Queensland
http://www.usq.edu.au
University of the Sunshine Coast
http://www.usc.edu.au
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Flinders University
http://www.flinders.edu.au
University of Adelaide
http://www.adelaide.edu.au
University of South Australia
http://www.unisa.edu.au
TASMANIA
University of Tasmania
http://www.utas.edu.au
Australian Maritime College
http://www.amc.edu.au
VICTORIA
Australian Catholic University Aquinas; Christ; Mercy
http://www.acu.edu.au
Deakin University
http://www.deakin.edu.au
La Trobe University
http://www.latrobe.edu.au
Monash University
http://www.monash.edu.au
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
http://www.rmit.edu.au
Swinburne University of Technology
http://www.swin.edu.au
University of Ballarat
http://www.ballarat.edu.au
University of Melbourne
http://www.unimelb.edu.au
Victoria University of Technology
http://www.curtin.edu.au
Edith Cowan University
http://www.cowan.edu.au
Murdoch University
http://www.murdoch.edu.au
University of Notre Dame
http://www.nd.edu.au
University of Western Australia
http://www.uwa.edu.au
