Opinion
The release of the latest QS World University Rankings has sparked a familiar cycle of celebration across Australia's universities. Vice-Chancellors have pointed to sustained or improved global rankings as evidence of strong leadership, and achievements in “academic reputation, employer reputation, faculty-to-student ratio and sustainability, among other factors.”
Australian universities have long been centres of critical thinking, civic engagement, and problem solving which underpin the education of our future teachers, doctors, nurses, lawyers, engineers and writers. This work is only more important as we grapple with record domestic undergraduate enrolments and historically low public funding of universities.
Yet, beneath the congratulatory headlines and social-media posts lies a striking contradiction.
The ‘other factors’, also known as quantity and quality of research, underpin 50 per cent of the QS ranking.
We would be forgiven for thinking that such progressive and successful universities should surely exhibit great representation and support for the student workforce which by the government’s own numbers, contribute 54% of research hours.
However, representation of the postgraduate students who contribute directly to the research performance underpinning these rankings operates on limited resources, with limited recognition, uncertain funding arrangements, or – in some cases – zero representation at all. Whilst universities (rightfully) celebrate global standing, the structures which should enable the research candidates to help drive the direction of the universities tell a different story.
If one looks across Australia’s leading universities (according to QS), postgraduate representation is in a precarious position. At the Australian National University, the longstanding postgraduate association has ceased operations; at UNSW, the postgraduate Council operates on an annual budget that would struggle to fund a single respectable university marketing campaign. At The University of Queensland, the postgraduate association remains heavily dependent on financial support facilitated by other student organisations. At the freshly merged Adelaide University, postgraduate students have entered a new chapter of the higher education institution without a dedicated postgraduate association or elected postgraduate student officer.
Even where postgraduate organisations exist, funding arrangements frequently leave them vulnerable – often to the unpredictable university priorities and attitudes, ironically replicating the same woes experienced by universities themselves with the federal government.
This is not a peripheral governance problem; structurally weak postgraduate representation impacts the university.
Student-led representative structures provide agile community led pathways to directly solving student issues on the ground. Many point to welfare programmes such as food banks and campus kitchens. Yet we would highlight the invaluable work of student leaders in redesigning university policies, contributing to Academic Boards, and managing their own independent organisations. Such activities, particularly in the postgraduate space, help ensure that when the government leaves the stipend stagnating below the poverty line, and cost-of-living bites, that we can put in the tailored programs and policy settings to ensure that completion times and attrition aren't impacted, and research output is protected.
The contradiction between rankings and our lived reality becomes particularly ironic when some of Australia's highest globally-ranked universities are often the ones doing the least for the postgrads who helped earn them.
The fix doesn't require a handout from the government, or a fresh federal budget. University leaders have a budget line for this support and they choose to direct it elsewhere.
If Vice-Chancellors are citing QS rankings as evidence of growing institutional excellence, the representation of the student workhorses producing those rankings is not an optional add-on. It is a structural necessity.
Are we self-interested as the peak postgraduate body? Yes. Yet, the QS ranking would still be carried on our members’ backs regardless of whether we existed.
What we bring to the table is not just ‘student voice’ but genuine governance experience built on the ground. For me that experience began on day one as president, when we were informed that we would be negotiating a new EBA, recruiting a new CEO and negotiating a new funding agreement with the university.
The student leaders shared the load. Three years later our membership had grown by a net increase of over 12,000 postgraduate students. A sign that our governance chops withstood the trial by fire.
That is what independent governance actually looks like: unglamorous, under-resourced, collective, and accountable to its members – not to the institution that funds it. It is also the accountability driven governance which critics of universities claim is lacking. The talent is in-house and on hand. We just need the support to maintain it, and a seat at the table to use it.
University leaders love talking up 'student voice' – but it can't just live in a strategic plan or a glossy brochure. Celebrating global rankings as evidence of institutional success without backing the postgraduates who deliver the result with independent representation is about as rich as a minister highlighting PhD research without lifting the stipend.
Jesse Gardner-Russell is the National President of the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations, and a PhD Candidate in Ophthalmology at The University of Melbourne.
Richard Lee is the National VP of the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations, and a PhD Candidate in Education at The University of Queensland.