Australian students’ spending on degrees has grown four times as quickly as the government’s, after fees and subsidies were overhauled during the coronavirus pandemic. Yet domestic students are shouldering a smaller share of universities’ overall income than before Covid.
A Times Higher Education analysis of publicly funded universities’ audited accounts has uncovered conflicting trends of affluence and adversity over the past seven years. Explosive growth in universities’ money-making sidelines – particularly their international and investment operations – has masked the financial pain of students and individual institutions.
The sector’s overall prosperity is built on shaky foundations, with revenue prone to stock market fluctuations, inflationary spikes and international education policy hostility. Meanwhile, students and some universities are struggling to survive.
Mark Warburton, a former higher education policy chief in the federal civil service, said Australian universities’ earnings had grown fairly steadily – at about 5 per cent a year in nominal dollar terms – before the pandemic. Since then they have varied wildly, driven up and down by investment swings, erratic international income and an extra A$1 billion (£521 million) of research funding in 2021.
