Commentary I can vividly remember the afternoon of my university graduation ceremony, not least of all because I got lost on the way to pick up my academic robes. I had hired them out from the University of Queensland (UQ)—for not an insignificant sum, I might add—and spent more than an hour desperately trekking across…

A decision on the proposed merger between the University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia (SA) is set to be revealed after months of talks. Both institutions have been considering a feasibility plan and their respective governing councils met this week to come to a final decision. That’s now expected to be revealed…

Government spending on research has dropped to its lowest on record, triggering a warning from universities. New forecasts show spending is on track to be 0.49 percent of GDP in 2022/23, having never dropped below 0.5 percent since records began in 1978. Universities Australia chief Catriona Jackson told the Australian Higher Education Industrial Association’s annual conference…

Australian universities have placed bans or restrictions on international students from some Indian states in an effort to crack down on growing fraudulent visa applications. This comes as the country has seen a surge in the number of international students after it re-opened its border in 2021. In addition, applications from Indian students are expected…

Australian university graduates could face the biggest increase to their student debt in decades due to rising inflation. But a federal parliamentary committee is examining a bill that would abolish indexation of student debts and raise the minimum income required to start loan repayments. Australia’s higher education loan system is tied to inflation and increases…

The Coalition is calling for a federal investigation into reports that Australian universities could be arming hostile foreign governments with skilled cyber hackers. This comes after allegations from academic whistleblowers revealed that Australian universities were potentially training Chinese hackers through teaching collaborations with Chinese universities. Shadow Minister for Cybersecurity and Countering Foreign Interference, Senator James Paterson,…

Financial incentives are encouraging Australian universities to admit more and more high school graduates that receive low Australian Tertiary Admission Ranks (ATAR) or use alternative admission schemes, resulting in a soaring number of dropouts, a new report found. While there are calls to scrap ATAR entirely, the Centre of Independent Studies argues that greater, not…

A new report has found that Australian universities, including those at the top, have underpaid their staff by at least $83 million (US$57 million) since 2020. The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) has released an analysis (pdf) that identifies 34 cases of wage theft in Australia’s higher education sector in the last three years. In…

The subject of history is now dead as a discipline and has been replaced by post-modernist theory, an expert from the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) has claimed. Bella d’Abrera, who is the director of the Foundations of Western Civilisation Project at the IPA, said that history as a discipline in Australian universities is no…

A nanosecond after U.S. President Joe Biden announced the partial cancellation of American student loans, a collection of interest groups demanded the Australian government do the same. The government should not comply. Cancelling Australian student loans is unfair, unnecessary, and unlikely to influence the courses that students choose to study. Why Is It Unfair? Contrary…