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
Australian Defence Force Academy
Australian National University
University of Canberra
NEW SOUTH WALES
Australian Catholic University
Charles Sturt University
Macquarie University
Southern Cross University
University of Newcastle
University of New England
University of New South Wales
University of Sydney
University of Technology Sydney
University of Western Sydney (Three sites):
Hawkesbury
MacArthur and
Nepean
University of Wollongong
NORTHERN TERRITORIES
Northern Territory University
Bachelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education
QUEENSLAND
Australian Catholic University McAuley
Bond University
Central Queensland University
Griffith University
James Cook University
Queensland University of Technology
University of Queensland
University of Southern Queensland
University of the Sunshine Coast
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Flinders University
University of Adelaide
University of South Australia
TASMANIA
University of Tasmania
Australian Maritime College
VICTORIA
Australian Catholic University Aquinas; Christ; Mercy
Deakin University
La Trobe University
Monash University
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
Swinburne University of Technology
University of Ballarat
University of Melbourne
Victoria University of Technology
Edith Cowan University
Murdoch University
University of Notre Dame
