School, uni, job. That’s what we’re told is the path to ‘success’ – or at least, a the best opportunities in life. University education has long been positioned as a crucial stepping stone towards a career that will see you thrive (mentally and financially). But anyone who has recently been a student or teacher at an Australian university knows the system is failing in more ways than one. Chronic underfunding, a narrowing perception of the purpose of tertiary, and a growing disparity between STEM and arts education… How can an institution that’s meant to make Australia better be so bad? And how can we fix it?
Here’s our take on the problems with Australia’s university sector… and why rethinking the role of tertiary education is the answer.
UPDATED 19 July 2023 with the University Accord interim recommendations – skip to the end for that.
A glimpse at the problem
The university sector’s problems did not begin during COVID, but the pressures of the pandemic exposed issues that had been there for a long time. Ryan H is a theatre student at Monash University and says COVID literally changed the content of his degree. It’s no secret that many Australian universities rely on the higher fees paid by international students. “Monash has 40% international students. Due to lockdowns those students can’t enter the country playing havoc at universities because you are losing a big chunk of students… They were losing a lot of money. Cuts had to be made,” Ryan says.
Of the 250 staff cuts at Monash, many were from arts programs. Ryan and his peers in the Centre for Theatre and Performance course had to campaign to save their professors and degrees, while the remaining staff had to make big changes to ensure the content could still be delivered with fewer resources. “We used do constant productions, which don’t exist anymore – it’s become much more theoretical. The course is now called ‘Critical Performance Studies’, which is a fascinating field of study. But it’s not a theater degree itself, it’s analyzing performance.” Ryan stressed that while he still enjoys this new degree, the reasons for the changes are very noticeable. “Because it’s so theoretical, it’s less applied and it’s cheaper.”
It’s not just the arts, either. A Post-Grad Researcher, also at Monash University said that funding for STEM research has also been difficult to come by over the past five to six years. “Funding has stayed at this scrape-by level for a long time. It’s hard for new researchers to come up and establish themselves. Last year, the success rate of the major medical fund funding body for applications was 9.5%, so you have to write 10 grants to get one grant. Writing a grant is not an easy process, it takes months. And you do that every year, several times a year.”
“You don’t get to apply all that time into your research because you’re worried about the money. And then your research output is less and therefore then your grant opportunities are less. It’s a toxic cycle,” she said. The reliance on grants and external funding is so crucial the Post-Grad requested to remain anonymous o protect her chances.
Why? Chronic underfunding
Funding cuts and changes to higher education laws have hindered universities’ ability to provide adequate resources and support to students, staff and researchers. The issues go back a long time – most experts point to the ‘Howard years’ as the beginning of what would be the Coalition’s systematic underfunding of universities. As The Age reported in 2008: “The Federal Government had cut total public funding to the universities by 4% in the period 1996 to 2004 — compared with an OECD average increase in public funding of 49% for tertiary education in the same period.”
The trend continued through the Abbott to Morrison years (2013 to 2022). For example, during Morrison’s term the government took the $3.9billion Education Investment Fund – which had been set up by Labor in 2009 to provide ongoing funding for tertiary education and research infrastructure – and moved the money into a national disaster relief fund. And, famously, no higher education staff were able to receive JobKeeper during the pandemic despite universities being highly affected by the pandemic.
Decisions to reduce research funding for universities, particularly through changes to funding schemes and competitive grants, have an ongoing impact. A university’s appeal, prestige and international ranking comes from its ability to attract top researchers and academics, undertake vital projects, and contribute to innovation and knowledge creation. That reputation and the quality of the courses attracts students, who pay the fees. The Monash Post-Grad says: “People are now trying to move away from the Australian system and apply for international grants, where you might have a better chance.”
Universities conduct 35% of Australia’s total research and development, including an enormous 80% of public sector research. Government and business do not pay the full cost for these studies, but benefit significantly from the knowledge and innovation they uncover. On average, a government grant provides 46%of the cost of research, which means the university must find 54% from other funding sources. Usually, this means taking money away from other equipment, facilities and staffing.
The result is a university sector in tatters, seemingly unable to serve students or academics and researchers well. With governments sabotaging the system from the top, it’s no wonder that frustration bleeds into the university itself. “When you decide to pursue a career in the arts, you know there’s no support. But it’s just something entirely different to actively have the institution that’s teaching you and being a place for experimentation to actually turn its back on you. That’s pretty demoralizing,” Ryan says.
Why? Staff Exploitation
It’s not just the students enduring a dysfunctional uni experience. According to the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), two-thirds of university workers are on casual or fixed-term contracts with more than A$100 million in unpaid wages owed to casual academic staff in Australia. Because universities are run like profit-driven corporations, while staff are brutally underpaid the executives are making bank. In 2022, the University of Sydney recorded a $1 billion surplus – the year before, while tens of millions of their staff reported being underpaid.
This list of salaries for Vice Chancellors in NSW will make your eyes water… In the meantime, casual teachers have no annual leave, no holiday leave, no research leave, no carer’s leave, no domestic violence leave, and no sick leave. No access to funding for conference fees or travel, or any form of professional development. No remuneration for designing and redesigning teaching materials and teaching curriculum. No compensation for attending meetings, organising readings, digitalising resources, peer-reviewing articles or replying to all of those “Please, I need an extension” emails.
The exploitative employment conditions not only affecting uni workers terribly, they also affect the quality of student experience. Saskia Beudel, an academic at the University of Technology Sydney, recently wrote for Kill Your Darlings: “As a casual unit coordinator I would have six hours per semester to design and prepare the entire unit content, oversee staff, and manage the unit for students; and two hours to prepare a weekly one-hour lecture. At around 5,000 words, a lecture takes days, not hours, to prepare. It requires reading, summarising and synthesising material, making the topic engaging for students, setting up slides with multimedia, and, in an ideal world, giving it a trial run. If I had dared to deliver a lecture that took only two hours of preparation, I would have appeared incompetent, barely able to fulfil my role and deliver what the university promises its students: a world class education that puts the student learning experience at the centre.” These promises come at the cost of staff and students.
Unfortunately, there aren’t many options for academics to search or bargain for a better situation, especially for those in the arts where comparable jobs outside universities are rare. To get a job at all in academia is presented as a privilege – and it is, but it also serves a hugely important role in a healthy society. Basic security and wage rights should be the bare minimum. Our Post-Grad Researcher believes “things need to change quick, because lots of people feel their jobs and situation are very volatile jobs and unstable. They move into areas and industries where jobs are a bit more stable and you can actually sustain yourself a little bit. But then [the universities] lose that talent, which is worrying.”
Has Australia devalued university education?
Because of everything you just read, the financial stakes of going to university have become much higher. It has lead to a concerning belief that the purpose of university education is to secure a high-paying job immediately after graduation. The idea that universities are job training facilities widens the divide between STEM and other degrees, in both funding disparities and what knowledge our society deems ‘valuable’.
While job prospects are one consideration, university education should be about more than just immediate employability. It should nurture critical thinking, problem-solving abilities, cultural appreciation, and teach us how to adapt and contribute to society. Under this understanding of the question “Why should you go to university?”, humanities and STEM programs are complementary rather than competing.
It might be surprising to hear, but this aligns really well with the way employers view university education already. Christina Grambas, an agent at Woods & Co recruitment agency, says employers still look for a Bachelor’s degree on your resume because “they teach you a lot of important skills around managing workload and time management organisation.” The degree topic itself is also not always relevant, and it’s not viewed as a substitute for practical experience by recruiters. “I can’t speak to every industry, but in the areas that we recruit in, we’re far more focused on kind of relevant experience and tenure, and where people have worked and what they’ve actually done in each place.”
Of course, specific qualification are required for specific industries – you will still generally have to do an engineering degree to become an engineer. But if you don’t want to be an engineer, pursuing a music or English literature or anthropology degree because you’re interested in those topics is not inherently less valuable.
How do we fix the university sector for all?
Go8 (aka Group of 8) is a group that represents Australia’s most research-intensive universities. Chief Executive Vicki Thomson says to get back on track, we need to stop relying on the private sector and international students to determine which degrees are valued (and funded). In a statement released in March 2023, Ms Thomson says: “A coherent, long term bipartisan National Research Strategy will give our universities the certainty they need to lead Australia’s productivity revival… Research is fundamental to our prosperity and national well-being. Most people do not realise how much research drives higher living standards.”
After almost a decade of Coalition brutality, the Labor government hasn’t yet started shifting money towards the sector. The 2023-24 Budget was just ‘okay’ in uni funding, and still focused heavily on STEM courses. It’s far from enough. But the government is working with the sector on the Universities Accord, a plan to seriously reform how uni will work over the next 30 years.
Editor’s Update: The Universities Accord interim report has been released, and it’s… dense. You can read the full thing here. There are five changes that it suggests we make immediately, including:
- Create Regional University Centres (RUCs) in regional, rural or outer-metro areas where there are low rates of tertiary education. These hubs would provide facilities like computers, internet, study spaces and some staff support, with the idea being that you don’t have to move to an expensive city to attend uni.
- End the 50% pass rate that was introduced as part of the Coalition’s ‘Jobs Ready Guarantee’ scheme. This criteria mean that if you failed 50% of the units you attempted, you would no longer be eligible for government assistance. It was found to impact poor students the most, so the government has agreed to end this in 2025
- Expand funding to all First Nations students undertaking a degree (previously only available to those from remote and regional areas)
- Guarantee what funding unis will receive in 2024 and 2025. The final report will propose new funding arrangements from 2025 onward, but immediate funding should be locked in for the next two years to be spent on equity measures for First Nations, poor, and regional or rural students.
- Use National Cabinet to discuss and implement improvements for uni staff working conditions, staff and student safety, and making sure that people with actual university governing experience sit on governing boards.
Government funding must return to universities – there is no way around it. Alongside this, university executives should be chosen for their ability to run a public service-like institution, rather than a for-profit corporation. This will better ensure that funds actually go to the places that will improve the experience and output: staff first and foremost, but also research and teaching facilities, and student support services. These are the changes that attract top-tier faculty members, generate cutting-edge research, and provides students with an experience they’ll speak highly of for the rest of their lives.
While it might sound intimidating, don’t forget that university used to be free in Australia. Would that be expensive? Yes, but every dollar spent on research and development returns $5 to the economy. The Greens have some radically simple ideas on how this could be paid for – and of course, university used to be entirely free.
For what it’s worth, University of Melbourne Vice Chancellor Duncan Maskell agrees that radical changes are needed. “What we have done by normalising the business of the students paying their university fees, is to entrench in our culture the idea that university education is only of private benefit to individuals – not public benefit to societies. This is a gravely mistaken emphasis.” The fact that he is currently the highest paid vice-chancellor in Australia and is advocating for universities to be seen as places of public service is a glimmer of hope.
Smart people read more:
The Exploitation of Casual Workers in the University Sector
Bri Lee Explains Why Australia Is a ‘Kyriarchy’ and Who Gets To Be Considered Smart
Introducing our new series on the future of Australian higher education
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