Bitter disappointment summed up the reaction from many in the Tertiary sector following the release of the Federal Budget last night.
Universities Australia reminded the government that it had missed yet another opportunity to address funding issues within the HE sector.
“Universities are bearing the brunt of increased regulation and costs at a time when investment in teaching and research is not keeping up,” UA CEO Luke Sheehy said.
"It's disappointing to see no further investment in the Australian Universities Accord and only a partial response to the Strategic Examination of Research and Development in this budget.
"The budget also misses the opportunity to fix the Job-ready Graduates Package – a failed, broken system that continues to push up costs for students while stripping billions out of university funding.”
Education Minister Jason Clare, left without even a press release to issue last night, will face some difficult conversations ahead from all sides – with only a new levy on universities to pay for the cost of TEQSA standing out in his portfolio in the Government’s big reform Budget.
The National Tertiary Education Union was crystal clear in its evaluation, slamming the Budget, saying it had, “missed an opportunity to fix Australia's universities, with the government failing to take the urgent action needed to fix a disastrous funding model.”
"Jobs Ready Graduates has been a policy dumpster fire that this government didn’t start but it has failed to extinguish,” NTEU National President Alison Barnes said.
“This is a fundamentally unfair, ineffective and corrosive model that is widely seen as an abject failure. It punishes students and cuts funding.
“Failing to fix Job Ready Graduates with a government now in its second term is beyond disappointing.”
The Australian Academy of Science welcomed the establishment of the National Resilience and Science Council, and celebrated additional funding for Government entities while noting that much of the funding appeared to come from the decision to axe the Australian Economic Accelerator, a shuttered research commercialisation and development initiative.
The Academy and medical research lobby group Research Australia both also welcomed the decision to distribute $1b in disbursements from the Medical Research Future Fund from 2030-31, despite the relatively distant timeline for action.
However it was the TEQSA Tax grabbed the attention of the sector, in a Budget that was essentially no carrot, all stick.
The Budget will levy universities $10.9 million in 2027-28 ( rising to $11.2m in 2029-30) to recover costs of operating the sector’s regulator, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA).
Within the funding envelope provided by the universities levy, TEQSA will receive $2.7m in the next financial year to exercise additional powers, “to have stronger enforcement and monitoring powers to step in and act when it is justified in the public interest. This will allow TEQSA to help ensure universities meet the standards students, staff and the Australian community expect,” the Budget papers state.
TEQSA staffing will rise from by 14 to 123 next financial year to cope with the expanded remit.
Keeping up the spirit of disciplining a sector perceived by the Government to be weak and wayward, the Budget also allocated $4.8m in the next financial year to provide additional support to the VET regulator the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA), including $1.5m, “to continue compliance actions to address serious integrity issues in the Vocational Education and Training sector.”
The Council of Australian Post Graduate Associations (CAPA) said the TEQSA cost recovery exercise would be passed on directly to students.
“The government created this office; the government should fund it. Creating a new regulatory oversight body, then slugging the regulated to run it is paradoxical,” the student organisation said.
The NTEU summed up the sector’s growing concerns over the viability of the Accord, given the failure of Education Minister Jason Clare to secure funding or forward estimates promises.
"The government has set out a genuine long-term vision for higher education. But without sufficient funding, the noble ambition of sending more students to universities simply cannot be realised,” Dr Barnes said.