Australia risks becoming an “artless country” if it does not address the long-term decline in enrolments in creative courses, with more than 40 courses and degrees axed in less than a decade.
New research published in the Australian Journal of Education this week found fewer students in high school and university were choosing to study the creative arts. At the same time, it found, dozens of tertiary courses were being slashed.
The research pointed to the former Morrison government’s job-ready graduate scheme as directly relating to the decline. Implemented in 2021, that scheme substantially increased the cost of arts and creative courses to cheapen Stem courses.
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Under the widely panned policy, the cost of creative arts degree programs for students rose by 19%, while arts, society and culture degrees rose by 116%.
The changes meant that, in 2026, a student enrolled in a commonwealth supported place for mathematics would make an annual contribution of $4,738, while a performing or visual arts student would pay just over double that at $9,537 and a humanities, media and curatorial student would pay $17,399 per year.
Prof Sandra Gattenhof, who co-authored the study, said there had been a “rollercoaster decline” in enrolments since the scheme was implemented.
“There’s a disincentive for students to go into these areas and it’s not like they are big money-making areas,” she said.
“We’re heading into, within the next five years, a real reduction in the capacities to sustain a creative and cultural workforce … There will be an enormous decline in the amount of creative and artistic activity in Australia.”
The chief executive of Universities Australia, Luke Sheehy, said reforming the job-ready graduate scheme was “urgent” and “should happen in this term”.
“It’s hurting students with higher fees and pushing some young Australians away from study altogether,” he said. “That’s bad for students and bad for Australia.
“Labor opposed [the job-ready graduate scheme] in opposition, yet in government it’s ignoring clear calls from students, universities and the minor parties and independents to fix it. What are they waiting for?”
In the five years to 2023 undergraduate enrolments in creative arts degrees declined at 30 of the 46 higher education providers included in the research, with some institutions seeing declines of more than 50%.
Feeding into the decline in enrolment, the research found, was a significant cut in the number of courses being offered. Forty-eight creative arts degrees were discontinued between 2018 and 2025 – in some cases leading to the removal of an entire disciplinary pipeline in a region or state.
Creative departments have also been on the chopping block in restructures at the Australian National University, the University of Technology Sydney and Macquarie.
The picture was also dire at a high school level.
Year 12 Atar enrolments in arts subjects dropped by 21% in the eight years to 2023, the report found, with drama (−39%), dance (−38%) and media (−25%) experiencing the sharpest reductions in enrolments, followed by music (−16%), and visual arts (−14%).
At the same time, there had not been a single national government initiative to address the issue, despite the commonwealth pouring $75.6m into Stem education initiatives to address similar enrolment shortfalls.
Co-author Dr John Nicholas Saunders said if the trend continued “we risk limiting who has access to arts learning … We risk becoming an artless country”.
Gattenhof said under the current conditions it was unlikely the federal government would meet the targets of its five-year National Cultural Policy, which aims to revive and diversify Australia’s arts sector.
“We really do need someone in government to take up the passion to recognise that we are in a crisis, and provide the leadership that Stem has had for arts, culture and creativity,” she said.
The minister for education, Jason Clare, and the arts minister, Tony Burke, were approached for comment.
