Australia’s university sector is in crisis, rocked by new scandals every week, dropping international rankings, staff and course cuts, all while Vice-Chancellors receiving million-dollar pay packets.

Another worrying sign of the sector’s misaligned priorities is that enrolments from disadvantaged students are declining. From 2019 to 2023, overall domestic undergraduate enrolments declined by 4.1%, with steeper declines among students from low-socioeconomic status backgrounds (9.6%), regional and remote students (12.5%) and first-in-family students (13.2%).

This is unsurprising. Decades of government decisions have made university education more expensive and inaccessible, while reducing the availability and adequacy of student assistance. Most university degrees are vastly more expensive than they used to be.

The Whitlam Government famously made university free in the 1970s but, even when student fees were reintroduced with the creation of HECS in 1989, fees remained modest, only $1,800 per year regardless of the degree. Over the decades, these fees have increased significantly, particularly following the Morrison Government’s introduction of the ‘Jobready Graduates Program’.

Today, student fees for popular courses such as law, commerce, and social sciences are nine times higher than they were 35 years ago; if fees had only increased in line with overall inflation, they would only be about two and a half times higher. These accelerating university fees have turned what were once modest contributions into significant debt burdens on younger generations. Student debts continue to mount and take ever longer periods to pay off.

In addition to rising student fees, universities are not regulated or funded to ensure that a full suite of courses is available to local students. This means that when universities cut courses, common in today’s scandal-prone and financially unstable sector, there may be no local institution that offers programs in the field a local student wishes to study.

This effectively locks out students without the financial means to move away from home, particularly as rents continue to rise.

Meanwhile, income support for students is inadequate and hard to access. The two main student income support payments are Youth Allowance (for those under 25) and Austudy (for those 25 and older). Since 2001, the number of domestic students in Australia has doubled (there are now almost 400,000 more students), but the number of student welfare recipients has declined by nearly half (about 175,000). As a result, while in 2001 there was about one recipient for every two students, in 2023 this ratio was about one to six.

The decline in student income support is likely due to a combination of factors reducing their accessibility. A gradual tightening of means-testing has squeezed out students with parents who are just not quite poor enough for them to qualify for the payments. Extremely strict tests have been introduced to make students prove they are independent of their parents. Part-time students, meanwhile, are unable to access any payments at all.

Those who are able to access these payments often still find themselves living in poverty. The measly Youth Allowance and Austudy, including associated payments for rent, are even lower than the notoriously inadequate JobSeeker Payment.

Analysis from the Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS) found that among households reliant on income support, those on Youth Allowance were in the deepest poverty. These young people bear the brunt of the housing crisis – Anglicare Australia’s analysis of over 51,000 rental listings found that none would be affordable to a single person on Youth Allowance, even in share housing.

It is no wonder that student reliance on food pantries is on the rise. A 2024 survey of students at the University of Tasmania found that 53% of students experienced food insecurity and 29% experienced severe food insecurity, both having risen since 2022.

The Albanese Government’s University Accord recognised these problems and made a range of recommendations, including reducing student fees (contributions) and making student income support more accessible, but the government is yet to act on these recommendations. If Australia wants an education system that truly enables people from all backgrounds to flourish, a good place to start would be dropping the cost of education and boosting the accessibility and adequacy of income support for students.