Five years after the introduction of the Job-ready Graduates Package, students are facing a double squeeze: higher living costs and some of the highest university fees in Australia’s history. This publication highlights the growing financial pressures facing students, why the current system is leaving many with unnecessarily high levels of debt and why it’s time to replace Job-ready Graduates.

International education is one of Australia’s great success stories, growing to become one of our biggest and most important export sectors. The students who come to study on our shores power Australia’s economy – delivering $55 billion in export revenue each year, supporting 250,000 jobs and helping keep businesses, communities and essential services running across the country.

This sector is a cornerstone of national prosperity and a strategic national asset – one that must be recognised, protected and backed.

This 2025 edition of ‘Critical challenges in Australia’s university sector: securing a sustainable future’ sets out the mounting financial pressures facing Australia’s universities and the implications for national education, research and productivity.

Drawing on the latest sector-wide data, it shows how nearly a decade of policy change, declining real per-student funding, tighter international student settings and rising research costs have eroded operating surpluses and constrained investment in infrastructure and innovation.

The report highlights the growing misalignment between funding and student demand, the limits on cross-subsidising research and the increasing difficulty universities face in planning beyond the short term.

A realistic understanding of these pressures is essential if Australia is to secure a stable, sustainable university system capable of delivering on the ambitions of the Universities Accord and the nation’s long-term economic and social goals.

The 2024 Indigenous Strategy Annual Report is the third annual report under Universities Australia’s Indigenous Strategy 2022–2025 and reflects the sector’s continued commitment to ensuring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ priorities remain at the heart of higher education. Drawing on the 2024 annual survey of member universities, the report highlights tangible progress across the Strategy’s key themes, including Indigenous student and staff success, leadership and governance, cultural safety and anti-racism, and the embedding of Indigenous knowledges across teaching, research, and decision-making. It also outlines Universities Australia’s advocacy and activities over the past year, demonstrating how the sector is moving from aspiration to action and strengthening its collective responsibility to advance Indigenous peoples in higher education.

PhD candidates are crucial to Australia’s research and innovation landscape. They contribute to a wide array of sectors such as government, education, healthcare and industry, fostering advancements that strengthen Australia’s position as a global leader in research. PhD programs not only enhance Australia’s academic reputation but also address workforce demands and skills shortages in essential fields. To sustain a strong research workforce and maintain competitive research standards, Australia must implement policies and resources which attract and support talented PhD candidates.

Universities Australia is urging both major parties to be bold and ambitious in their vision and support for Australia’s universities as the next federal election looms.

Our 2025 federal election statement outlines how universities can help the next federal government build a stronger, more prosperous Australia in the face of new challenges and opportunities.

Australia’s universities have a central role to play in ensuring our country can navigate all that lies ahead. They are national assets and should be treated as such, receiving bipartisan support to grow and succeed in the national interest.

Our universities are expected to deliver on multiple fronts critical to the nation’s future.

These expectations include:
• providing world-class education
• driving research and innovation
• boosting economic growth, creating jobs and supporting local economies
• fostering global partnerships to enhance Australia’s international reputation, and
• playing a key role in supporting regional areas and communities.

Yet, Australia’s universities are at a tipping point.

Over the past decade, a combination of policy decisions and external pressures has placed unprecedented financial strain on institutions that serve as the country’s foundation of education,
research and innovation.

On behalf of Universities Australia’s members, we present to you the second annual report required by the Universities Australia’s Indigenous Strategy 2022–2025.

Universities Australia, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor Indigenous Committee, and the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Higher Education Consortium would like to acknowledge the significant contributions UA’s members undertook in completing this year’s annual survey, using the new survey software and data collection method.

We are pleased that the findings of this report provide further evidence of the significant contributions Indigenous peoples are continuing to make in the higher education sector. Many colleges and schools are experiencing the benefits of incorporating Indigenous ways of knowing, doing, and being into their curricula. Additionally, an increasing number of Senior Executive teams are benefiting from the inclusion of Senior Indigenous leaders and their expertise.

Universities are committed to reconciliation and Indigenous advancement in line with Universities Australia’s Indigenous Strategy which makes a strong commitment to fairness and social justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Universities are committed to reconciliation and Indigenous advancement in line with Universities Australia’s Indigenous Strategy which makes a strong commitment to fairness and social justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

Sexual harm is a societal problem and just like the rest of Australian society, universities must play their part in stamping out this problem.

In Australia, many students experience sexual harm and gender-based violence on university campuses, and in the community more broadly. With one in six experiencing sexual harassment and one in 20 experiencing sexual assault at university, tertiary education providers must continue to build on and improve their efforts to prevent sexual harm.

While there are many frameworks guiding primary prevention in Australia, gaps remain. The Primary Prevention of Sexual Harm in the University Sector – Good Practice Guide seeks to fill these gaps by providing primary prevention practitioners with evidence-based approaches in a diverse range of university contexts together with insights into consultation approaches to inform successful interventions.

This guide aims to drive collaboration between primary prevention practitioners and foster a culture of working to dismantle the values, norms, practices, and structures that enable gender-based violence and sexual harm in our university communities.

The launch of the UA Indigenous Strategy 2022-2025 demonstrates the Australian university sector’s ongoing commitment to supporting the advancement of Indigenous peoples within and through universities. The strategy’s five key themes reflect a systemic approach to this cause.

There is always more work to be done, yet this first annual report since the launch of the new strategy provides valuable insights into the progress made by member universities, including specific recruitment activities and programs for Indigenous students, governance mechanisms to ensure Indigenous representation, and efforts to promote awareness of Indigenous values and knowledges among graduates.

As the peak representative body for the sector, Universities Australia acknowledges its responsibility to collaborate with the sector to further advance the strategy’s commitments. The annual reporting process will continue to be an important tool for charting progress, sharing good practice and identifying areas requiring further action.

The Universities Australia Women’s research program for 2021-2022 has a specific focus on inclusive practices and work/life balance for women in Australia’s university sector. The purpose of this literature review is to provide the evidence base for the current state of gender inclusivity and work/life balance and to offer examples of national and international leading practice of DEI in universities and other knowledge-based industries, which have innovative solutions to many of the challenges faced by women in the workforce that can be transferred into the university sector.

While the remit and focus of this project is ‘women’, the authors acknowledge that there are additional and compounding challenges experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, LGBTIQ+ individuals, people with disability, and people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, that may intersect with the drivers of gender inequality outlined in this literature review.

This report was commissioned by Universities Australia, the peak organisation representing 39 universities in Australia. In particular, its sub-group, Universities Australia Women, was responsible for conceiving the project as part of its charter of improving gender equality and employment outcomes for women in Australian universities.

A toolkit for the Australian university sector 2022.

The latest snapshot of facts and figures covering Australia’s higher education sector – from funding and university finances to student enrolments, jobs and skills, and international rankings.

Universities Australia will use its seat at the table of the Government’s Jobs and Skills Summit to advocate a four-pronged approach to ensuring Australia has the pipeline of workers that employers and the economy need to grow and prosper – now and in the future.

This handy data snapshot gives a sense of the profound economic, social and cultural contributions of Australia’s world class universities.

Universities are at the heart of driving Australia’s productivity – through the highly skilled graduates we produce and technological and social innovation we generate through research. Investment in Australia’s universities is an investment in Australia’s future.

Universities Australia has commissioned Deloitte Access Economics to analyse the contribution that universities make to Australia’s economic and social prosperity (2020).

A policy guide to Australia’s future.

Statistics and policy position summary.

Quantitative report on the prevalence of sexual harassment and sexual assault among university students in 2021.

Qualitative research on experiences of sexual harassment and sexual assault among university students in 2021.

Supporting the advancement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in and through university is the objective of the Universities Australia Indigenous Strategy.

Suicide Prevention: A Competency Framework for Universities offers a structure which enables early intervention for staff who may be experiencing suicidal behaviour, staff or students with a lived experience of suicidal behaviour, and people studying who may experience struggles or factors that cause significant distress.

First published February 2022.

Download the joint statement from convening higher education associations on collaborating to support safe, secure and sustainable internationalisation.

For universities to be places where people thrive both academically and personally, they need an authentic, supportive culture and a framework that fosters positive mental health and wellbeing for all staff and students. This framework needs to include the provision of appropriate support or timely and effective referral to support when mental health difficulties arise. A big part of that is having real and relevant conversations between peers, staff and students to notice any mental health difficulties and seek out appropriate support and services that may be necessary.

Notice, inquire, provide: What to notice, how to inquire, and how to provide support when you are concerned about the mental health of someone you know.

2020 is the year that facts, evidence and data became more critical than ever before. As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, Australia turned to university experts, research and facilities to educate and inform. Before that, universities helped with our understanding and response to the summertime bushfire crisis.

When a suicide occurs, the effect on those touched by it – families, friends, communities – is immediate and traumatic. The impact on a university community is no different. It often happens unexpectedly and leaves the institution with many questions about what to do next. Universities have an important responsibility to respond in a safe and evidence-informed way so the health and safety of the university community is protected.

This practical guidance has been prepared for universities and their leaders to reduce to an acceptable level the risk of Coronavirus (COVID-19) transmission in university environments during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The strong business case for partnering with universities

An initial response from Australia’s universities to the national student survey on sexual assault and sexual harassment

Universities and the startup economy

This report was prepared for Universities Australia by Deloitte Access Economics.