August 12, 2026
Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee
The Group of Eight (Go8) consents to the publication of this submission and has no wish for any of it to be treated as confidential.
The Go8 supports the Government’s ambition to build a stronger, more sustainable and more equitable higher education system. The Universities Accord rightly recognised that Australia will need significantly more graduates and greater participation from students currently under-represented in higher education if we are to meet our future economic, social and workforce needs.
We support additional places, demand driven places for equity students and other areas of unfulfilled need, and the establishment of Needs-based Funding. These are important reforms.
However, the success of this legislation will ultimately be judged by a simple test: whether it expands opportunity for students or constrains it.
Students should be at the centre of the new system. They contribute almost half the cost of their education and make life-shaping decisions about where and what they study. The reforms must therefore preserve student choice, reward student success and ensure funding follows students to the institutions they choose.
Universities should be able to offer places to every student capable of succeeding, provided they have the capacity to teach them. A funding system that restricts student choice, discourages universities from responding to demand, or limits opportunities for capable students will undermine the very objectives the Universities Accord seeks to achieve.
The Bill risks replacing one barrier with another. Instead of financial barriers, students may face administrative barriers that prevent them accessing the institution they believe offers the best pathway for their aspirations. They got the marks they needed but were told to accept a different university for reasons beyond their control.
Despite this setback, if the student decides to study for a year at another university before trying to transfer to their preferred one that is an extra year of study and foregone income. The average student would incur around $8,000 in additional debt and $77,000 in foregone income because it took them an extra year to finish – at least $85,000.
The opportunity cost is clear.
The cost of restricting student choice extends far beyond the individual student. It includes duplicated onboarding and administrative costs for the universities, additional Commonwealth subsidy expenditure, delayed workforce entry, foregone tax revenue, reduced productivity, increased attrition risk and weaker incentives for institutional quality and innovation. These costs represent an economic deadweight loss to students, universities, taxpayers and the broader economy.
This is particularly problematic when Australia needs more graduates, more equity participation, and more flexibility for universities to respond to changing patterns of demand. If the Bill slows the allocation of places, discourages universities from making offers, or requires repeated Ministerial decisions before student demand can be met, it will not deliver the growth Australia needs.
Australia needs a system that grows participation, rewards success, supports equity and enables institutional diversity. These goals are complementary, not competing.
The mission of our universities is not to maximise enrolments; it is to maximise student success. Growth should be driven by student choice and educational quality, not by administrative allocation alone.
The Universities Accord found that we will need more students from under-represented groups if we are to produce the graduates that we want and need as a society. Truly demand-driven places for equity students would be the strongest supply-side measure to achieve that goal. At the same time, we must also continue to encourage aspiration, curiosity and endeavour in students and build viable, high-profile pathways into universities, TAFEs and other providers.
The ultimate test is whether more students, particularly those from disadvantaged, regional, remote and First Nations backgrounds, are supported to remain enrolled, complete their studies and graduate with the skills, knowledge and qualifications Australia needs.
Just as importantly, the system must continue to support aspiration before enrolment. Participation targets will not be achieved through student support alone. Universities need the flexibility and resources to undertake sustained outreach and pre-access activities that build aspiration, confidence and preparedness among students from under-represented backgrounds. If Australia is serious about expanding participation, outreach must remain an integral part of the equity ecosystem rather than an afterthought.
Under both the current and proposed systems, there is no mechanism to directly support universities that achieve higher retention and completion outcomes, despite the higher costs involved in teaching advanced subjects compared to introductory subjects. This Bill removes the dormant performance-based funding scheme yet provides the ATEC with few practical levers to encourage performance beyond the allocation of places.
Australia does not face a choice between strong research-intensive universities, strong regional universities and strong equity outcomes. We need all three.
We should encourage universities to specialise, diversify and differentiate so that student choice flourishes. Success should come from creating new opportunities and meeting student aspirations, not from competing for the same students in the same courses. In doing so, we can avoid the “hunger games” scenario described by the Minister.
We appreciate the Government’s commitment to ensuring the higher education system is financially sustainable and capable of responding to student demand. In the current fiscal environment, the most efficient way to achieve this is through the timely allocation of student places, complemented by targeted growth where demand exceeds expectations.
The proposed framework contains a range of mechanisms designed to manage growth. While appropriate safeguards are necessary, the balance must be better calibrated. Currently the proposal is likely to see a system that is overly risk-averse with universities constraining offers and enrolments, collectively suppressing growth and reducing opportunities for students.
The Government should have a role in setting national priorities, but these powers must be subject to clear limits, transparent decision-making and proper parliamentary scrutiny. Our concern is whether this Bill gives the Minister powers that are too broad, too discretionary and insufficiently accountable for decisions that directly determine how many students can access higher education, where they can study and which institutions can grow.
This is not just a narrow procedural concern as these decisions dictate student opportunity. If Ministerial powers are exercised without sufficient transparency or scrutiny, the system risks becoming less responsive to students and more vulnerable to short-term fiscal or political considerations. That would undermine the Accord’s ambition to expand participation and attainment.
Finally, while this Bill makes important structural reforms, it does not address the most significant distortion in the current system: Job-ready Graduates. The new funding architecture should not entrench existing inequities or make future reform more difficult. Instead, it should provide a stable foundation for the eventual replacement of Job-ready Graduates with a more coherent and equitable funding model.
Recommendations
The Go8 recommends that the Senate should pass this Bill if and only if it is satisfied that it:
- Preserves and enshrines the principle of student choice
- Allows universities to respond to student demand in a timely and flexible manner
- Creates a truly demand driven system for equity students that supports participation, success and completion
- Has appropriate oversight provisions for the ATEC and protects institutional autonomy and academic freedom
- Ensures that Ministerial powers are subject to transparent safeguards and Parliamentary accountability
- Paves the way for the eventual replacement of Job-ready Graduates
Further information
1. Preserving and enshrining the principle of student choice
Student choice should remain a foundational principle of Australia’s higher education system. Students make decisions about whether, where and what to study based on a combination of academic interests, career aspirations, institutional reputation, location, personal circumstances and the opportunities available to them. These decisions are ultimately made by students themselves in their best interests and not by governments, regulators or funding models.
The Universities Accord’s attainment ambitions will only be achieved if the system responds effectively to student preferences and aspirations. A funding framework that enables students to access the university and course that best meets their needs is more likely to support participation, engagement, retention and successful completion. Conversely, a system that constrains student choice risks reducing confidence in higher education and limiting opportunities for capable students.
The Go8 supports the Government’s objective of creating a more sustainable and strategically managed higher education system. However, managing growth should not come at the expense of student agency. The implicit assumption that students denied a place at one institution will simply enrol elsewhere is not supported by student behaviour. Students choose universities for specific reasons – a particular course, career pathway, location, learning environment, reputation or set of opportunities. When access to a preferred institution is constrained, demand is not always redistributed; in some cases it is lost altogether.
The risk is not simply that places are redistributed between providers, but that students lose the opportunity to attend their preferred university or undertake their preferred course. This concern is particularly relevant in disciplines such as medicine, veterinary science, engineering, advanced science and other specialised fields that are not uniformly available across the sector. For many students, attending a particular university is inseparable from accessing the educational opportunities they seek.
Students may instead alter their study plans, defer enrolment, choose a different qualification pathway, relocate, or not participate at all. There is also a risk of increased and unnecessary churn in the system where students cannot be offered their first choice and instead study another course, or at another provider, only to transfer into their first choice after a year or two. This can extend their studies, increase their debt, exhaust government funding and places, and stretch university resources.
Student choice should also be recognised as an important driver of quality and innovation. Universities should compete to attract students by offering high-quality educational experiences, strong student outcomes and distinctive opportunities. A system that allows demand to influence growth encourages institutions to focus on student experience, teaching quality and graduate outcomes rather than merely managing allocations.
This principle is particularly important in the context of equity. Students from low socioeconomic, regional, remote and First Nations backgrounds should not be expected to exercise less choice than other students. Equity students who have earned their place should be able to attend the institution that best aligns with their aspirations and capabilities. The objective of widening participation should be to broaden opportunity, not direct students towards a narrower set of options.
For this reason, the Committee should assess the Bill against a simple test: does it expand or contract student choice – regardless of student background and means? The Bill should be amended to preserve student choice and responsiveness to student demand while supporting the broader objectives of system sustainability, equity and growth.
2. Allowing universities to respond to student demand in a timely and flexible manner
The central risk of the Bill is that a system designed to manage growth becomes a system that suppresses growth. If universities act conservatively in response to allocation constraints and financial penalties, the cumulative effect may be fewer opportunities for students and lower overall attainment.
The success of the Managed Growth Funding system will depend on whether it remains sufficiently responsive to actual student demand. While Go8 supports the Government’s objective of improving transparency, accountability and long-term sustainability, the system should avoid creating incentives for universities to constrain enrolments or become overly cautious in responding to student demand.
A managed system necessarily requires universities to operate within allocated student profiles. However, universities and the ATEC will need to negotiate allocations and make decisions about admissions criteria months before actual application patterns are known. If universities are concerned about exceeding allocations and incurring financial penalties, they are likely to adopt more conservative admissions practices and make fewer offers than they otherwise would. Taken collectively, this behaviour could unintentionally suppress growth across the system and reduce opportunities for students who are qualified to undertake university study (including students from equity groups).
The system, if not operating efficiently and effectively, has the potential to hamper universities that are already under-enrolled which would be counter to the intentions of creating a more sustainable system. The lack of choice could have a major impact on regions primarily served by one or two universities. If all universities with local campuses are constraining their offers and enrolments then students may not be able to attend a university.
Many universities have already begun to tighten admissions practices in response to the Department of Education and the ATEC’s allocation system for 2026 and 2027 and the push to curb over-enrolments. Universities have scaled back and withdrawn guaranteed ATAR entry pathways for many courses. In high-demand disciplines, capped growth may place upward pressure on admission thresholds, making it more difficult for capable students, including those from under-represented backgrounds, to gain admission to their preferred institution. This outcome would be inconsistent with the Accord’s objective of expanding opportunity and increasing participation.
The Bill should therefore ensure that universities retain sufficient flexibility to respond to fluctuations in student demand and changing patterns of enrolment. A responsive system requires timely and efficient mechanisms to allocate additional places where demand exceeds expectations and sufficient buffers and allowances before universities are penalised. While the Additional Growth Allocation and Total Allocation Pool provisions provide some flexibility, the practical operation of these mechanisms should be monitored closely to ensure they are sufficiently agile to support students when and where demand emerges.
Over-enrolment buffer
This is why the Go8 recommends the removal of the additional 750 EFTSL cap within the over-enrolment buffer while retaining the 105 per cent Domestic Student Profile threshold. Universities should not be penalised for strong retention rates or modest variations in enrolment demand that arise through normal admissions processes. A simplified 105 per cent buffer would provide greater confidence for universities to make offers and respond to student demand while maintaining appropriate incentives against significant over-enrolment.
Demand driven courses
A potential consequence of a course being declared demand-driven, especially in the case of popular courses such as teaching or nursing given as examples in the Explanatory Memorandum, is that these places are removed from the Core Student Load of a university. The consequence is that institutions may become increasingly dependent on maintaining enrolments in those specific courses in order to preserve their total number of student places.
While the objective is to support growth in areas of national workforce need, as currently implemented such an approach risks disadvantaging universities seeking to fulfil student demand in good faith. If demand for a demand-driven course subsequently falls, or if workforce needs change over time, universities could face a reduction in their total places despite continuing strong demand elsewhere across their educational offerings. This may reduce institutional flexibility, constrain universities’ ability to respond to changing student preferences, and create pressure to sustain enrolments in particular disciplines for funding reasons rather than educational or workforce considerations.
If the decision to make a course demand driven is revoked then these places should be restored to a university’s Core Student Load (either the number of places it initially had in that course or the current number of places it has in that course). The ATEC can make an appropriate allocation within total number of places available.
3. Creating a truly demand driven system for equity students
The Go8 strongly supports the Government’s commitment to increasing participation among students from under-represented backgrounds and welcomes both the proposed demand-driven places and the introduction of Needs-based Funding. If the Universities Accord’s participation and attainment ambitions are to be realised, Australia needs both more equity participation and stronger equity completion and attainment outcomes.
Go8 universities are already significant contributors to national equity objectives, but there is more that we can achieve. Go8 universities educate 30,000 students from regional and remote Australia and 30,000 students from lower-income backgrounds, while maintaining completion rates around 10 percentage points above the national average. Equity policy should therefore recognise not only where students enter higher education, but where they are supported to succeed, complete and graduate.
However, the Bill currently relies heavily on administrative processes and future decision-making rather than establishing a clear legislative framework for managed demand-driven equity growth. Public statements by the Minister have consistently indicated that students from low-SES and regional and remote backgrounds who achieve the required academic standards should be guaranteed a place. While the Bill does provide a mechanism for the Minister to increase the Total Allocation Pool (TAP), the Bill does not explicitly guarantee that demand-driven growth for equity students will function well in practice (or indeed occur at all).
Universities need greater certainty that places for eligible equity students will be made available when demand materialises. Guidance provided through the 2027 mission-based compact process suggests a complex and potentially slow administrative process whereby universities monitor applications and enrolments against equity targets, request additional allocations from the ATEC, and then await a decision from the Minister on expansion of the TAP. While this framework may work administratively, it risks creating uncertainty for institutions and students alike. A student-centred system should provide students the confidence that they will receive a place when they meet admission requirements rather than relying on a series of discretionary decisions after application demand becomes apparent.
For this reason, the Go8 considers that managed demand-driven equity arrangements should be more clearly articulated and protected in legislation. The Bill should establish a more direct and transparent mechanism through which additional places are automatically made available when eligible demand from equity cohorts exceeds existing allocations. The Government has repeatedly indicated that eligible students from under-represented backgrounds who meet admission requirements should be able to access a university place. If that is the policy intent, then the mechanism for delivering those places should not rely on multiple discretionary decisions by universities, the ATEC and the Minister after demand has already emerged.
The legislation should provide a clearer guarantee that when universities successfully enrol additional eligible equity students beyond agreed targets, funding and places will follow. This would create greater certainty for students and institutions alike and better align the legislation with the Government’s stated objectives.
First Nations postgraduate participation
Finally, the Go8 believes that demand-driven participation should encompass the full educational pipeline. The existing demand-driven arrangements for First Nations undergraduate students have made an important contribution to participation, but consideration should also be given to extending demand-driven funding to First Nations postgraduate coursework students.
Strengthening postgraduate participation would help build the future academic workforce, support Indigenous research capability and leadership, and contribute to a stronger pipeline of Indigenous academics and professionals. In many professions that will be critical to meeting Closing the Gap targets, a postgraduate degree is the recognised and accepted minimum qualification level.
4. Appropriate oversight provisions and autonomy for the ATEC and universities
The Go8 has supported the objective of stronger system stewardship and the broader shift towards a more coordinated, strategic and accountable higher education system. Effective stewardship will be essential if Australia is to meet the Universities Accord’s participation and attainment ambitions. However, the effectiveness of the proposed framework will ultimately depend on achieving the right balance between accountability, Ministerial oversight, institutional autonomy, transparency and operational flexibility.
Accountability, transparency and autonomy should be seen as complementary rather than competing principles. Any stewardship body will only be effective if it commands the confidence of students, universities, governments, Parliament and the broader community, and if its responsibilities, powers and decision-making processes are appropriately balanced, transparent and subject to appropriate scrutiny.
The Bill confers substantial powers on both the Minister and the ATEC in relation to the allocation of domestic and international student places. These powers will influence institutional planning, student opportunities, institutional autonomy and university finances. Given their significance, the Go8 supports amendments that strengthen parliamentary scrutiny, transparency, procedural fairness and operational certainty while ensuring the system remains focused on students, institutional diversity and agreed national priorities.
These safeguards are not merely procedural matters. They are central to maintaining confidence that the new system will be stewarded transparently, that the ATEC operates with appropriate independence and accountability, and that universities retain sufficient autonomy to respond to students, communities, industry needs and national priorities.
Certainty and stability in allocation processes
Universities require long planning horizons to determine admissions strategies, communicate with prospective students, establish staffing profiles and develop annual budgets. As currently drafted, the timing of key allocation decisions may not provide sufficient lead time to support these activities.
Go8 welcomes the requirement for the Minister to determine the TAP before 1 July in the preceding year at the latest. Similarly, international allocation decisions should be made on the same (or similar) timetable that aligns with admissions cycles and student recruitment activities.
The international allocation framework should also provide greater certainty once providers have commenced recruitment activity. Universities should not face situations where allocations are reduced after offers have been made or enrolment confirmations have been issued. The framework should therefore minimise retrospective changes and provide clear protections for students and institutions that have acted in good faith on the basis of published allocations. Student confidence in the system must be maintained – when varying allocations, the new level must include current offers and enrolment confirmations to date.
Core student load and growth allocations
The Core Student Load (CSL) provisions are intended to ensure that universities that fully utilise their allocations are not disadvantaged in subsequent years. The Explanatory Memorandum explicitly states that a university’s allocation should not go backwards if it delivers all the places allocated to it. Go8 strongly supports this policy intent.
However, the current drafting may not fully achieve this objective. Under the proposed arrangements, CSL calculations rely on historical verified enrolment data that may lag actual demand and institutional performance. For universities experiencing growth and consistently filling or exceeding their Domestic Student Profile (DSP), this creates a risk that future allocations could be understated, requiring additional growth allocation negotiations simply to maintain existing activity levels. This may weaken the capacity of universities to plan confidently and may divert growth allocation discussions away from genuine future expansion.
The Bill should therefore be amended to ensure that institutions that successfully fill their allocations are not disadvantaged by timing or data-lag effects. The CSL methodology should more directly support the stated policy objective that universities meeting student demand within their allocated profile can confidently maintain that level of activity in subsequent years.
5. Ministerial accountability
The Go8 supports stronger system stewardship. However, stewardship is not the same as unchecked ministerial control.
The Bill gives the Minister and the ATEC substantial powers over the allocation of domestic and international student places. These powers will shape institutional planning, student opportunity, university finances and Australia’s future graduate pipeline. Particularly concerning is the ability for a Minister to impose conditions and reduce allocations on the basis of matters entirely unrelated to domestic or international education.
The Go8 accepts that governments are entitled to establish policy objectives and funding conditions. However, conditions imposed on institutions should be directly relevant to the purpose of the grant, reasonable and proportionate, and consistent with the objects of the Act. They should not become a mechanism through which governments can indirectly administer institutional decisions that properly belong to university governing bodies, academic boards and established regulatory processes.
This would allow the Minister unchecked power to shape the character, purpose and behaviour of our independent, autonomous institutions – over-riding their values and missions and disregarding the voice and authority of students, staff, academic boards, executives and councils.
Transparency and parliamentary oversight
The Bill enables the Minister to determine both the Total Allocation Pool (TAP) for Commonwealth Supported Places and the international allocation pool (and vary those amounts) through legislative instruments that are exempt from parliamentary disallowance. The arrangements substantially reduce parliamentary oversight of decisions that directly affect access to higher education and the funding available to universities.
Given the significance of these decisions for students, universities and Australia’s domestic and international education sectors, the Go8 recommends that the Committee consider whether stronger transparency and accountability measures are warranted.
This could include more clearly defined statutory criteria governing allocations and variations, publication of reasons for significant decisions, or enhanced parliamentary scrutiny of allocation frameworks. One option would be to ensure that total allocations cannot be reduced below the previous year’s levels without explicit parliamentary consideration. This would preserve long-term confidence and planning certainty while maintaining government flexibility to support future growth.
At a minimum, the Bill should require the publication of reasons for all major allocation decisions, including the basis for determining the size of domestic and international allocation pools and any significant variations to those allocations. Greater transparency is necessary for the integrity of the system and to make clear how strategic priorities and evidence have informed decision-making.
Allocation of international places
The Go8 has previously recognised the case for a coordinated and transparent approach to managing international student growth, including mechanisms to align international education with broader national objectives. However, elements of the proposed framework require further consideration to ensure that allocation decisions are transparent, predictable, evidence-based and subject to appropriate accountability.
The Bill allows the Minister to specify both the kinds of providers to which the ATEC may make an allocation and the matters that the ATEC must take into account when making allocation decisions. Given the significance of these powers, the Committee should consider whether there are strong enough controls and safeguards on how these powers are exercised. The Minister should only use these powers in circumstances that are directly relevant to the provision of international education and the objects of the Act.
Similarly, the Minister may direct the ATEC to reconsider an allocation and specify matters that must be taken into account in doing so. While oversight mechanisms are appropriate, the Committee should consider whether the balance between Ministerial direction and independent stewardship has been appropriately calibrated, particularly where allocation decisions have already been made by the ATEC.
The Go8 also considers that once allocations are published and universities have commenced recruitment activity, adverse reductions should only occur in exceptional circumstances. Universities, students and international partners should be able to rely on published allocations when making decisions involving study, staffing, accommodation and investment. Predictability is essential to Australia’s reputation as a stable and trusted international education destination.
Conditions on grants
The Bill allows the Minister to place conditions on grants as part of the Commonwealth Grants Scheme (CGS) this is an accepted practice and the Go8 does not object. However, these conditions should be required to be materially relevant to the nature and purpose of the grant and in keeping with the objects of the Act to avoid circumstances in which the conditions are antithetical to the grant or outside of the scope of the grant.
6. Eventual replacement of Job-ready Graduates
The Bill represents a significant restructuring of higher education funding, but it leaves untouched the most significant distortion in the current system: Job-ready Graduates (JRG). The Committee should therefore ensure that the new funding architecture facilitates future reform rather than entrenches existing distortions.
The Universities Accord recognised that Australia will require substantially higher levels of tertiary attainment to meet future workforce, productivity and social objectives. Achieving this ambition requires a funding system that encourages participation and progression, particularly among students from under-represented backgrounds. However, JRG continues to create powerful disincentives for some prospective students by increasing the cost of study in a range of disciplines and strengthening concerns about student debt.
As the Government constructs a new funding architecture, it should also seek to minimise unnecessary complexity. The Bill introduces multiple allocations, profiles, buffers, designations, modifiers and reporting requirements which risks imposing substantial administrative costs on both universities and the Government. More importantly, it risks delays to universities being able to offer students the place they deserve. Resources devoted to compliance are resources that cannot be directed towards teaching, learning, student support or research.
The long-term objective should be a funding system that is transparent, administratively efficient and capable of adapting to future reforms, including the eventual replacement of JRG. Building flexibility into the architecture now will reduce the need for future structural changes and help ensure that the system remains focused on its core purpose – supporting student participation, success and attainment.
Conclusion
Australia will need more graduates, from more backgrounds, studying in more places if it is to achieve the ambitions set out in the Universities Accord. Success will ultimately depend on more students being able to access the university experience they seek, complete their studies and graduate with the skills, knowledge and qualifications Australia needs.
The Go8 is concerned that as currently drafted this legislation does not protect student choice, appropriately check Ministerial power or ensure it can achieve the objectives of increased participation.
A funding system that rewards student success, supports aspiration, guarantees genuine growth for equity students, protects institutional autonomy and gives universities confidence to respond to demand will help Australia reach the attainment ambitions of the Universities Accord. A system that creates uncertainty, constrains choice or suppresses growth will not.
Ultimately, this legislation should be judged against a single question: does it expand opportunity for students?
If the reforms preserve student choice, enable universities to respond to demand, support equity students to succeed, and provide a flexible and accountable framework for growth, they will make a significant contribution to the ambitions of the Universities Accord. If they constrain opportunity, limit aspiration, or discourage universities from meeting genuine student demand, they will fall short of that objective.
The Committee should ensure that the Bill preserves student choice, enables universities to respond to student demand, supports equity students to not only access but complete higher education, and maintains the balance of autonomy, flexibility, accountability and transparency necessary for the ATEC to steward a high-performing system.
Australia does not need fewer opportunities distributed differently. It needs more opportunities created for more students. The success of this Bill will ultimately be measured on whether it helps deliver that outcome.
