For ten years, it was a large multi-campus college of advanced education, which taught a varied range of programs.
It diversified during its ten years, taking on many language, business and nursing course students.
[1] Research in 1990 found that the college's students mainly lived in eastern and southern Melbourne, and on the Mornington Peninsula.
[citation needed] In 1988, the Dawkins higher education reforms by the Commonwealth Government meant that just seven years after its establishment, Victoria College was to become part of a university.
However, the most supported of the early floated plans was a merger of all the other campuses with Swinburne Institute of Technology.
A sticking point was that Swinburne required the Victoria campuses to almost completely stop teaching humanities, and focus on science and technology courses.
After this proposal waned, a complete merger with Monash was strongly mooted and supported by the university.
In July 1990, a state government report still preferred a Monash merger, but thought a Deakin deal would also be appropriate.
The final deal approved by Victoria College was to lose Rusden to Monash, and merge with Deakin.
So in the end, on 31 December 1991, the Burwood, Rusden and Toorak campuses (plus the college's corporate body) merged with Deakin University.
Like Rusden, its courses were relocated to Deakin's Burwood campus and the property was sold to developers.
Much of the site is to become private housing, while the future use of the heritage protected Stonnington mansion is uncertain.
It offered a wide range of higher education and TAFE courses (including degrees), with a focus on art and design.
Burwood Teachers College began at the Box Hill Methodist Church in 1954 while waiting for its buildings to be ready.
It was founded because Monash University's initial enrolment for teaching was greater than its facilities could support, and establishing a separate college on the same site was more cost effective for the state government than enlarging facilities at the university.