How will the government finance more higher education enrolments?

The government has grand hopes for additional higher education participation, on the way to 80% tertiary attainment by 2050. But how they will fund enrolment growth is much less clear. The governme…

andrewnorton.id.au

Mapping Australian higher education – August 2026 update

I don’t currently have the capacity for a new edition of Mapping Australian higher education 2023 but I am still updating the data behind the tables and charts. The latest spreadsheet is here…

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My Senate inquiry submission on the government’s student place capping bill

Submissions to the Senate inquiry into the government’s student place capping bill – with the official but misleading title of the Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill …

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The proposed new funding system, part 6: Private universities and non-university higher education providers

The funding system I have described parts 1 to 5 of this series of posts applies in full to the higher education providers listed on ‘Table A’ of the Higher Education Support Act 2003. …

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Beyond $50k arts degrees: what has Job-ready Graduates done to postgrad study?

Job-ready Graduates created cheaper postgraduate education – especially for nursing students – but this may not last.

theconversation.com

Rewards and penalties under ATEC and the new funding system

This post in an overview of rewards and penalties available to ATEC as it enforces mission based compact terms and student places allocations. By the standards of recent higher education regulation…

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Occasional Paper Series

Occasional Paper Series

melbourne-cshe.unimelb.edu.au

Proposed new funding system, part 5: What has happened to effectively demand driven funding for equity groups?

In his second reading speech for the Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026 education minister Jason Clare said that it will ‘help more people from poor families and…

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The proposed new funding system, part 4: Needs based funding

The idea behind needs based funding is that universities should be paid according to student characteristics, not just the disciplines of the subjects students take. While agreeing with the broad c…

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ATEC’s allocation of international student commencements

In presentations earlier this year I told audiences that the government will try again to impose provider-level caps on international students. Its 2024 attempt failed due to a surprise Coalition-G…

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The proposed new funding system, part 3: capping over-enrolments

The Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026, in itself, does not do what it says in the cover. Although the minister’s promotional material focuses on new Commonwealt…

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The proposed new funding system, part 2: ATEC allocations of Commonwealth supported places to public universities

In the previous post, I outlined how the minister would set total numbers of Commonwealth supported student places if the Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026 is passed.…

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The proposed new funding system, part 1: Setting the number of fully-funded Commonwealth supported places

This post is the first in a series of explainers on how the new Commonwealth supported student funding system will operate if the Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026 is…

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Caps are coming for domestic uni places, but the government also wants to grow student numbers. Can this work?

Federal Education Minister Jason Clare has introduced a bill under which universities face new caps on their domestic student numbers.

theconversation.com

Trends in domestic postgraduate coursework education

I have a paper coming out soon, co-authored with Ren-Hao Xu, on the rise of Commonwealth supported places in postgraduate coursework degrees. It is another in our series on university decision-maki…

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University missions and financial incentives: the response of universities to Australia’s Job-ready Graduates policy - The Australian Educational Researcher

Funding incentives are widely used to steer universities towards meeting policy objectives, but they do not always produce the expected outcomes. The headline policy of Australia’s Job-ready Graduates...

link.springer.com

Self-reported status by educational attainment, an update

It’s common to hear concern about the ‘status’ of vocational education. An article yesterday in The Conversation reported a ‘stigma’ associated with school leavers cho…

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Rule by email in higher education policy – over-enrolment and governance

This post is about unlegislated higher education policies. The story starts last year with reports that the government was imposing caps on commencing Commonwealth supported places, which reached t…

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TEQSA’s response to the Australian National University’s governance issues

Julie Bishop quit as ANU Chancellor last Friday, but not without a parting shot: “Following unprecedented and co-ordinated interference, the ANU Council is no longer able to discharge its legal and…

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ATEC’s interim statement of strategic priorities

Yesterday the Australian Tertiary Education Commission issued an interim statement of strategic priorities. This statement will guide university mission based compacts for 2027. This post covers th…

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Treasury’s take on student debt repayment times under Job-ready Graduates

Thanks to a Guardian story based on a FoI request we now know that Treasury has modelled changes to HELP debt repayment times under Job-ready Graduates. They are six years too late to influence the…

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$50,000 arts degrees look set to stay, despite a new bill trying to slash uni fees

Only the federal government can fix the problems created by the Job-ready Graduates scheme. Ahead of the budget on May 12, it shows no interest in doing that.

theconversation.com

The $1 billion spent on undelivered student places

Last year I wrote about payments to universities under the Higher Education Continuity Guarantee, a Morrison-era program to compensate universities for ‘under-enrolment’. I then had dat…

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Political compromise to end the worst of Job-ready Graduates

Late last year the Greens introduced the Higher Education Support Amendment (Reverse Job-Ready Graduates Fee Hikes and End 50k Arts Degrees) Bill  into the Senate. Submissions for the Senate inquir…

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ATEC legislation amended in the Senate

The ATEC legislation passed the Senate yesterday, after the government accepted amendments from the Greens and David Pocock. It now needs to be rubber-stamped by the House of Representatives and th…

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Needs based funding winners and losers

Last month I wrote about the new equity and regional needs based funding programs. Back then I had the funding formulas but not total funding amounts. The Department’s funding determinations …

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What is going on with low SES higher education numbers?

In his speech to the Universities Australia conference last month Jason Clare complained that the low SES share of enrolments ‘hasn’t changed that much in the last 30 years.’ He is over…

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Needs based funding – the regional campus component

This post examines the regional campus component of needs based funding, which starts this year. I looked at the low SES and Indigenous component last week. The regional component funds students at…

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Needs based funding – the low SES and Indigenous component

Directing some university funding based on student, rather than just course, characteristics was one good idea coming from the Universities Accord. Students arrive in higher education with varying …

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