Analysis of news articles in Australia this year compared to a decade provide a potential glimpse into the depths of public dissatisfaction with the university sector.
While much deeper sentiment analysis is required to get an accurate picture, Future Campus this week trawled through public archives, comparing the number of stories relating to a wide range of search terms that have appeared in the past year, compared to the number that appeared in the corresponding period a decade ago, using the Newsbank Access Australia database.
It makes for sobering reading – with the results summarised in the chart above.
Searching for articles mentioning “university” and also “cost” revealed there were 25,926 in the 12 months to 11 November 2025, and just over 10,000 in the 12 months to 11 November 2015. Searching a little deeper, there were more than three times as many stories mentioning the words “University” and “high cost” and also “University” and “expensive”.
The samples also, on the surface appear to tell a story of the sector’s pressure points over the past year:
- There were more than 14,000 stories mentioning “University” and “crisis” compared to 3,226 a decade ago
- More than 4,500 stories mentioned “University” and “assault” in the past year compared to just under 1,400 a decade ago.
- There were 4,266 stories mentioning “University” and “hate” compared to 982 a year ago.
The results have significant limitations. The presence of both words in an article does not necessarily indicate it has a negative or positive reflection on the sector – or any reflection at all. Deeper sentiment analysis is clearly required.
One factor which could be positive, or may also be negative is research. There were 43,064 mentions of “university” and “research” over the past year in Australian media stories, far more than the 24,833 mentions a decade ago. However, given the strong and sustained public campaign from many people in the sector calling out inadequate research funding over the past year, it is impossible to tell at first blush whether this is a positive or negative result.
There are many other insights to dissect, alongside results from our survey examining higher education leadership, which will wrap up on Monday.
If you haven’t had a chance to contribute your thoughts on HE leadership to the four minute survey, you can find it here.