Undergraduate offers are down 2.3% in aggregate across the nation, falling by just over 6,000 to 265,046.
The Australasian Conference of Tertiary Admissions Centres (ACTAC), which represents admissions centres across Australia, revealed the decline yesterday.
Kim Paino, Chief Strategy and Engagement Officer at UAC, said that some jurisdictions had seen a rise, but warned against reading too much into offer data, given that some institutions may be making fewer offers, as they adjust to managed growth controls imposed by the Federal Government, but also the increased focus on filling domestic places meant more offers were being sent out by other institutions. Direct offers are also not included in the metric.
UAC had sent out more offers for the Sem 1 2026 intake, but the changes in offer activity and other external factors "has led to a sometimes tenous link between offer and enrolment," she said.
James Cook University Vice-Chancellor Simon Biggs warned of poor signs on the domestic front, telling his LinkedIn followers that regional enrolments were going backwards historically, with a 7% fall in regional and remote students between 2017-24.
While regional campuses were enrolling more students from city areas (44% in 2024 compared to 40% in 2017), on campus enrolments at regional unis were significantly down – a drop of around 14% between 2017 and 2024, to 57,200.
More funding was required to keep a greater proportion of regional students on campus, he said.
The trends are not rosy for the Government's Accord ambitions, which demand a net increase of around one million students in tertiary education over the next 24 years.
So what else could young Australians be doing if they are not rushing to their nearest university or TAFE? Are new approaches required to engage?
The ABS yesterday reminded us that almost a quarter of young Australians aged 15-24 own up to loving video or mobile games and of those gamers, young men are investing an average of almost four hours per day (3 hrs 56 mins) while young women in the category spend 2 hours 25 minutes. A day. On average.
As acolytes of gamified curriculum say, if you can't beat em…