New university enrolments from students with low socioeconomic backgrounds dropped by 10% between 2020 and 2024, as independent senator David Pocock warns the Morrison-era Job-ready Graduates (JRG) scheme is creating a “segregated” higher education system.
The JRG scheme was introduced under former Liberal prime minister Scott Morrison in 2021 and led to arts degrees costing students more than $50,000, while other degrees including in science and mathematics saw fees slashed by up to 59%.
Experts, and the government, have conceded the scheme – designed to incentivise students into Stem (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) courses – “failed” and instead discouraged students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds from pursuing a university education.
New enrolments dropped nearly three times more among students from low socioeconomic backgrounds (9.8%) compared with all other domestic students (3.5%) over a four-year period, according to data analysis by Innovative Research Universities.
In 2024, the scheme cost all domestic students an extra $368m, with students studying degrees in the highest band paying an additional $1.3bn compared with a scenario where the scheme did not exist, according to the IRU, which is a group of seven public universities “committed to inclusive education and innovative research”.
Pocock has lobbied the government to change the scheme and said the IRU figures – based on the most recent data available – show the entrenched inequity in the scheme.
“[JRG] is not only lumping students with $50,000+ humanities degrees but also creating a segregated higher education system where only students from wealthy backgrounds can study things like law,” he said.
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Law and commerce degrees, which have the highest fees, saw commencements drop 17.7% among students from a low socioeconomic background between 2020 and 2024. Law and commerce commencements among all other students increased 2.3%.
Pocock said: “The Albanese government talks up their commitment to equity but we need to see those words matched with action to scrap JRG, which has now been in operation longer under their watch than the Morrison government.”
The IRU found saw that the commonwealth provided $1.2bn less in funding in 2024 than it would have under pre-scheme settings. The base funding for universities was $813m lower in 2024, despite the increase in student contributions.
Paul Harris, the IRU’s executive director, said the data shows “signs of segregation in our higher education system based on the cost of the degree to students.”
“What we’re really worried about is the emergency of a two-track higher education system,” Harris told Guardian Australia.
George Williams, the IRU chair and vice-chancellor of Western Sydney University, said the scheme was actively working against the principles of the government’s university accord – to improve equity, quality and sustainability in higher education.
“JRG’s had a devastating impact on the very people that higher education needs to serve, who often benefit the most from a university degree,” Williams said.
“Law is a ticket to sometimes a really big opportunity in life and is an area where we need people from different backgrounds. To see a 17.7% decrease in low-SES [enrolments] in a law degree is a really big marker of the problem.”
The government has introduced a bill to establish the Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC) which will help implement some of the recommendations of the universities accord. The ATEC’s establishment has already been delayed, after the government initially committed to it being formally up and running by January.
But concerns have been raised over the current bill: namely that ATEC can provide advice to the government on commonwealth funding to universities, but is not required to consider and provide advice on student contributions.
Harris said it was “essential” that the ATEC had the ability to balance the cost to students and government.
The Greens’ higher education spokesperson, Mehreen Faruqi, has also raised the alarm on ATEC not considering student contributions in its advice to government and accused the Labor of “kicking the ‘JRG can’ down the road”.
“This Labor government talks a big game on equity in higher education but sees no urgency to undo the very policy that is prohibiting low-SES students from accessing the degrees of their choice,” she said.
