E&OE 

SALLY SARA: Universities Australia says increasing the country’s national skills require enabling more Australians to get a university degree. Today, it will make the case for expansive support for the sector and look to meet the lofty goal of an extra one million domestic students by the year 2050. But of course, it comes at a time when the sector is battling dwindling demand. Institutions have been found to undertake poor governance and there have also been falling revenues. The Chief Executive of Universities Australia is Luke Sheehy and he’ll be speaking at the National Press Club later today. But before that, he’s my guest here on Radio National Breakfast. Luke, welcome to breakfast.  

LUKE SHEEHY: Good to be with you.  

SALLY SARA: Luke, what are the challenges that are facing the sector? You’ve blamed successive governments on where universities find themselves now, particularly on the issue of funding and especially the Coalition’s Job Ready Graduates program, which changed the fee structures and funding to the sector in 2021. Why haven’t universities been able to adapt and recover from those changes?  

LUKE SHEEHY: What I am saying today is making the case to invest in Australia’s universities for the future of Australia. We know we need more skilled workers, and we know we need more research and know-how to drive the transformation required in Australia. So, when we talk about funding, we have faced a systemic underfunding of this sector for over a decade. Job Ready Graduates has failed, and we’re saying that both sides of politics in an election year need to fix it and fix it as a priority. It’s not just what students pay to go to university, but it’s what we get to support them to deliver world-class education and research. And that is nearly a billion dollars less than what we used to have. 

SARA SALLY: What’s your evidence that the Coalition’s Job Ready Graduates package has failed? 

LUKE SHEEHY: Well, it’s failed because it’s giving us less and making us do a lot more with less funding. We are now more reliant on other income sources and the change in student fees, which was widely talked about to turbocharge demand in national priority areas like teaching and health related workforce areas, hasn’t worked. So, what we’re saying is it’s not stimulating demand in the areas of the economy we need, and we’ve got less to do more, and it is going to reach crisis point in our sector if we don’t fix it as a priority. We can’t be uplifting the number of students to a million more by 2050 if we are not match fit. The system of funding isn’t working. Job Ready Graduates needs to go. 

SARA SALLY: In your speech, you will say that voters would rather a booming economy over a short commute. Why make this comparison to major roads funding when both are needed to create the Australia of tomorrow? 

LUKE SHEEHY: Absolutely, both are needed. We need to have arteries for the economy of Australia to work. Roads are really important. We use them every day. I’m a great motorist, I love roads, but what I’m saying is the investment in universities helps us drive all of the other national priorities. We can’t build roads and homes without engineers and architects and the skilled workforce that comes from both TAFE and apprenticeships, but also universities. So I’m making the case that when governments stand up, when the major parties stand up in an election year and talk about their vision for the country, universities are here as partners in delivering that. Skilled workers are coming out of university in droves and we need more of them and we need more of them to deliver things like roads, clean energy, nuclear technology, a Future Made in Australia or a bigger Medicare. 

SARA SALLY: What do you understand about the way that the university sector is viewed by the public? There’s a lot of stock of positivity there. A lot of families want their kids to go to uni and there’s a view in a bigger sense that Australia needs educated people, but things like the salaries of those leading universities, the number of underpayment scandals that have unfolded, and of course dealing with the issue of protests and antisemitism as well. Does the sector have some work to do to address some of the issues that are within its control? 

LUKE SHEEHY: Well, let me start by saying this. I’ve been in this job for just over a year and I have visited 39 of our members, all of our members in fact, right across the country and in regional Australia and outer suburban parts of the country and in the inner cities. Most of the communities around our universities are deeply grateful for the role that they play in supporting their communities and the work they do to turbocharge not only their economies, but their ideas and the inquiry that universities provide. Institutions in the Western world, trust in them is in decline. We are seeing this not just at universities, we’re seeing it with banks, with corporations, with Parliament and with the judiciary. It’s really important that institutions that support a strong democracy like universities, like the Parliament, invest in their own social license and social capital. Yes, there are things where we’ve made mistakes and we’re working to rectify them immediately, and I’m really proud of the work that all of our universities are doing, but we have to invest in ourselves and we have to make the case. That’s why I’m here today at the National Press Club saying national priorities and growing Australia for the betterment of our people is about growing Australia’s university sector as well. 

SARA SALLY: You’re listening to breakfast and I’m speaking with Luke Sheehy who’s the Chief Executive of Universities Australia. Luke, time is running against us, but I need to ask you about international students, and this is where two portfolios have been crossing over in government when it comes to education and also issues for immigration. How important are international students to your funding model and what are you looking for from government in this pre-election environment to ensure that we get the right balance with immigration, but you also have those international students who help to fund you? 

LUKE SHEEHY: Well, our universities want to deliver for the nation and we’re not for profit. We are not taking the revenues from international students or domestic student fees for profit. We’re investing in world-class teaching experiences for Australians and international students from over 160 countries. Last year, we saw policy chaos in this nation building sector, a sector that drove half of economic growth in 2023, and the Reserve Bank is telling us now the damage that’s been done to international education risks Australia’s overall economy. So, what we want is support for this international education sector that supports Australian universities. One of the points I’ll make today in the speech is that international student revenues, because of this systemic underfunding, supports the education of Australians. Nearly a million Australian students go to our universities and get a world-class educational experience because of the hundreds of thousands of international students that support them. 

SARA SALLY: Luke Sheehy, it’s been really interesting to talk about the future of the sector and the speech you’ll be giving at the National Press Club today. Thank you very much. 

LUKE SHEEHY: Thanks for having me. 

ENDS