Australia will have 624,590 fully funded university places in 2027, an increase of 23,000 places as the Federal Government introduces a new managed growth system for higher education.
Minister for Education Jason Clare announced the total allocation pool, with individual allocations for universities to be confirmed next month.
“Next year more Australians will go to university than ever before.”
“More jobs require more skills. That means we have to open the doors of our universities wider. In our big cities, in the suburbs and in the bush,” Clare said.
“This will mean we have more teachers, more nurses, more scientists, more engineers, more of the skills Australia needs.”
The new system follows the passage of the Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Act through Parliament this month. The legislation allows the Minister for Education to set a Total Allocation Pool (TAP) and ensures the overall number of funded places cannot decrease from one year to the next.
It also gives the Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC) the authority to allocate places and request additional places where demand is greatest, including for students from disadvantaged backgrounds and regional and rural communities.
The managed growth system was a key recommendation of the Universities Accord, which projects that 80 per cent of Australia’s workforce will need a university degree or vocational qualification by 2050.
The Government says the reforms will help ensure university places grow where they are needed and enable more Australians to gain qualifications for the country’s future workforce.
The legislation is expected to deliver an additional $3.6 billion in university funding and support an extra 230,000 commencing students over the next decade.
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