'Get on with it': universities lash funding fix delay

Students are being priced out of universities under a “failed” fee scheme the federal government has been too slow to fix, leaders in the sector warn.

The Job-Ready Graduates scheme was introduced by the previous Scott Morrison-led coalition government in 2021 and was intended to direct students to in-demand careers by hiking fees for arts degrees above $50,000, while slashing science and mathematics courses.

However, the reforms failed to meaningfully shift course preferences and resulted in a reduction in Commonwealth funding, while leaving students with significantly higher debt.

The scheme has been a “universal failure”, Universities Australia chief executive Luke Sheehy told a parliamentary inquiry in Canberra on Tuesday.

The government had failed to act on the University Accord’s recommendation from early 2024 to overhaul the scheme to tackle rising student contributions and funding cuts, Mr Sheehy said.

“That report is now more than two years old, and we have had two federal elections since the Job Ready Graduates Scheme was introduced,” he said.

“Our message, I think, collectively, today, is, let’s get on with it.”

Mr Sheehy is one of several witnesses called to appear at the inquiry into a bill introduced by the Greens to reverse the scheme and bring the cost of arts degrees back under $25,000.

He welcomed the bill’s intentions, but said without also increasing university funding, the proposed legislation would make the situation worse.

“(The scheme) needs to be fixed, and it needs to be fixed now,” he said.

“Let’s be clear, though, about what this bill does: it cuts student’s fees on one hand and quietly cuts funding on the other.”

Without additional Commonwealth investment, the bill would strip a further $1.3 billion from the university system each year, Mr Sheehy said.

This is in addition to the roughly $4 billion Universities Australia estimates the scheme has pulled from the sector since 2021.

“That is not reform,” Mr Sheahy said. “That is cost-shifting”.

Disadvantaged students have been particularly impacted by the scheme, Innovative Research Universities executive director Paul Harris told the inquiry.

New university enrolments for students from low socio-economic backgrounds fell 10 per cent from 2020 to 2024, according to Innovative Research Universities data.

“Fewer students from low socio-economic backgrounds are enrolling in university, and this decline is much worse in the courses with the highest fees under the JRG policy,” Mr Harris said.

“We believe that pricing some students out of certain degrees at the point of entry is fundamentally unfair.”

The National Tertiary Education Union, which represents university employees, welcomed the move to repeal the scheme, but similarly warned the bill in isolation would further reduce funding per student, which could drive more staff cuts.

Education Minister Jason Clare has been forthright in branding the Job-Ready Graduates scheme a failure.

The federal government has yet to announce a new funding model since the Universities Accord recommended an overhaul.

It is waiting on the newly formed Australian Tertiary Education Commission to provide advice on a new funding structure that better reflects the true costs of teaching and learning at university.

“There’s a lot to do,” Mr Clare said.

“It’s like eating an elephant. You have to do it one bite at a time.”