Australia’s oldest universities have discarded their guaranteed entry schemes for top-performing high school students, amid rolling changes to the funding of undergraduate degrees.
The University of Melbourne has removed Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) guarantees for admission into its courses in 2027, ending a longstanding practice whereby students were all but assured of places if they exceeded threshold scores in their final school assessments.
From next year, only “equity” students – such as Indigenous Australians and people from low socio-economic status (SES) neighbourhoods – will qualify for Melbourne’s ATAR guarantees.
The University of Sydney has jettisoned a similar scheme, after domestic student quotas were set as part of a shift to a proposed system of “managed growth”. Under the proposals, universities that exceed their quotas by more than 5 per cent or 750 enrolments will face stiff financial penalties and will be unable to accept fees from the excess students.
Other Sydney universities have increased their ATAR thresholds in response to the proposals, according to The Sydney Morning Herald. The University of Queensland (UQ) has not yet changed its admission rules in preparation for the incoming system, but it told a Senate committee that it would have to consider doing so under “strict managed growth settings”.
