Higher education reforms introduced by the Morrison government – which doubled the price of some humanities degrees and lowered fees on some other courses – have not benefited students and should be scrapped, peak university bodies say.
The jobs-ready graduates package was implemented by the former Coalition government in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic to incentive students to study certain degrees, including science and engineering.
It reduced the overall government contribution to degrees from 58% to 52% and increased fees for some courses, including humanities, to fund fee cuts in other courses and 39,000 extra university places.
A coalition of leading tertiary voices have lodged submissions to Labor’s universities accord review, saying the reforms haven’t worked. They’re calling for the changes to be reversed and for a stronger, more equitable funding system.
Under the current scheme, students incur annual Help fees as high as $15,152 for law, business and humanities courses – four times those for teaching, nursing, maths and language students who contribute $4,124 a year.
The Australian National University’s vice-chancellor, Brian Schmidt, said there shouldn’t be barriers to public funding based on degrees that governments “don’t like”.
“Students know what’s best for them,” he said.
“Incentivise them and let them keep their agency – give them scholarships, that changes people’s minds.
“It’s an unliveable situation.”
When first proposed in late 2020, Labor senators accused universities of being “in cahoots” with the Coalition over the changes, which reduced the overall federal funding to the tertiary sector despite a surge in demand for places during Covid.
Universities Australia, the peak body for the sector, urged senators to pass the bill for “funding certainty” but has since reversed its stance.
The body’s chief executive, Catriona Jackson, said inequity in higher education needed “desperately to be addressed”.
She said price signals “simply do not work” as a way to drive student choices.
“Government funding is falling while the cost of doing research is rising, forcing universities to rely on international student fee revenue to support these vital endeavours,” she said.
“This is not sustainable.”
Jackson said the intent of the reforms – to encourage students to change their choice of university degree – was doomed to fail.
Research has found course preferences still depend on student interests, and that for financially motivated students job and salary prospects have a greater impact than course costs.
The Greens’ education spokesperson, Mehreen Faruqi, said the scheme amounted to a “cruel, punitive mess”.
“Labor spoke a big game in opposition, calling the scheme beyond repair, but have done nothing to reverse the harms of this policy disaster,” she said.
The education minister, Jason Clare, said the Albanese government’s universities accord review, which is due to hand down an interim report by the end of June, was looking at “a range of important issues”, including affordability and the jobs-ready graduates scheme.
Dr Alison Barnes, president of the National Tertiary Education Union, said the scheme had “dismally failed on every measure”, including matching places with demand for skills.
“The new student places it provided for were without new funding to support them,” she said.
“Now low-earning graduates are likely to be saddled with massive debts. The policy eroded public funding of universities while increasing the burden on students.”
Schmidt said the financial burden was also falling heavily on universities.
“In 2019 I taught fewer students and got roughly 5% more money than I do in 2023, with 100 extra students and 12% inflation,” he said.
“What we’re finding is it gives us less money than it costs to teach.”
ANU ran a deficit in excess of $100m in 2022, in large part due to losing money across science and engineering courses.
Commonwealth funding is capped, meaning at a certain threshold the university is losing money if it boosts enrolments in courses that are cheaper for students but more expensive for universities to run.
“It makes financial sense to take on students in commerce and law but financially punishes you if you take on a lot of engineering and science students,” Schmidt said.
