ľ¹ÏÓ°Ôº CEO Luke Sheehy
Australia cannot meet its equity ambitions in higher education if students are being priced out of participation. That is the uncomfortable truth at the heart of the student experience right now.
Across the country, students are making impossible choices between paying rent, buying groceries, taking on more paid work or continuing their studies. For many, university is no longer just academically demanding – it’s financially exhausting.
And while these pressures are affecting students from all walks of life, they are hitting hardest those who the system should be working hardest to support: students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, regional and remote communities, First Nations students, students with disability, carers and those who are the first in their family to attend university.
At the same time Australia is asking more people than ever to gain tertiary qualifications. The Australian Universities Accord set a national target of 80 per cent tertiary attainment by 2050, which the federal government has adopted.
We know the jobs of the future will increasingly require post-school qualifications. We know university participation is critical to lifting productivity, strengthening industries and improving living standards.
But we cannot seriously talk about expanding participation while ignoring the financial barriers keeping students out, or pushing them to breaking point once they are in.
That’s why ľ¹ÏÓ°Ôº has consistently argued the Job-ready Graduates Package (JRG) needs to go and needs to go now.
JRG dramatically increased student contributions in a range of disciplines, particularly the humanities, communications and society and culture fields, based on the assumption that price signals would steer students into areas of workforce need. But the evidence tells a different story.
Universities Admissions Centre data shows JRG has had virtually no impact on student choices. Just 1.5 per cent of students have changed their preferred field because of fee changes. Even in disciplines with the steepest increases – such as communications and media – only 0.3 per cent chose not to preference these courses.
Under JRG, students have not abandoned the disciplines they are passionate about because the price went up. Instead, many have simply taken on more debt.
In some cases, students undertaking three-year humanities degrees are now facing debts exceeding $50,000. That is not equity – it’s unfair.
It’s hard to argue Australia is building a fairer higher education system when students from less advantaged backgrounds are being asked to carry significantly higher financial burdens simply to participate.
The other big issue with JRG is that at the same time it’s saddling students with larger debts, it’s also stripping universities of around a billion dollars a year in funding at a time the system is under great strain.
You cannot improve equity by stripping funding out of universities while simultaneously expecting them to provide more support to students with increasingly complex needs.
The broader cost-of-living crisis has only sharpened these pressures. Financial hardship is increasingly shaping whether students can fully participate in university life, or whether they can remain enrolled at all.
In light of this, ľ¹ÏÓ°Ôº is calling for government support for a new national student finances survey. The last survey was conducted before the pandemic, the rental crisis, surging inflation and the introduction of JRG. We need up-to-date evidence to properly understand the financial pressures students are facing and the impact they are having on participation and success.
This is particularly evident in mandatory placements. Teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work students, among many other cohorts, are often required to undertake hundreds of hours of unpaid practical training while still covering rent, transport, childcare and basic living costs. For many students, particularly those without family financial support, this creates an almost impossible barrier.
The Commonwealth Prac Payment is an important recognition of this challenge and ľ¹ÏÓ°Ôº strongly supports its expansion to cover more disciplines. Students undertaking essential placements should not be financially punished for training in professions Australia desperately needs.
Similarly, we need to do more to support Australia’s research students. If Australia is serious about becoming a more innovative, productive and research-driven economy, we must make research careers viable.
Current PhD stipend levels are simply too low given the realities of housing, inflation and living costs. Many research students are experiencing significant financial stress while undertaking work that directly contributes to Australia’s future capability, innovation and economic growth.
Lifting the PhD stipend is not just a research policy issue. It’s an equity issue. Talented people should not be locked out of research careers because they cannot afford to pursue them.
Universities are working hard to respond to these challenges. Across the country institutions are investing in student support services, food relief programs, mental health supports, scholarships and accommodation initiatives designed to improve student outcomes and retention.
But universities cannot solve this challenge alone. If Australia wants a fairer tertiary education system – and if we are serious about meeting our national skills and productivity ambitions – then student affordability and participation must be treated as core policy issues, not secondary considerations.
That means confronting policies that are making university harder to afford, not easier. Equity is not just about getting students through the door. It’s about whether they can afford to stay, succeed and thrive once they are there. We need to be doing everything we can to make that happen.
Saddling students with larger debts through policies like JRG while asking more Australians than ever to pursue higher education pulls in exactly the wrong direction. If we want a bigger, fairer and more productive tertiary education system, we need policies that reduce barriers to participation, not widen them.
