He may have the opportunity to woo Senate crossbench support at Wodonga next month among those invited to attend a higher education forum hosted by the Albury-Wodonga campuses of Charles Sturt and La Trobe universities, with member for Indi Cathy McGowan.

But the reforms will be only one focus of an event designed to discuss how regional university campuses can remain both viable and vibrant.

It’s important to provide tertiary education options locally, both to encourage regional participation rates and to keep costs down for students and their families, but the challenge for providers is to be able to compete with city campuses.

The forum promises to be a worthwhile and interesting discussion about future directions for tertiary education in our regions.

Education has previously been promoted as a growth industry for regional centres including Albury-Wodonga.

However, there are increasing concerns that university deregulation will mean regional campuses will find it more difficult to compete with their metropolitan counterparts.