The man tasked with reforming the controversial Job-ready Graduates (JRG) program has stated he will not recommend any interim measures to reduce the $50,000 cost of arts degrees, despite acknowledging the scheme as a failure. Barney Glover, the new head of the Australian Tertiary Education Commission (Atec), told Guardian Australia he would provide advice to the government on funding for degrees in the second half of next year.
Background of the Job-ready Graduates Scheme
Under the JRG scheme introduced by the Morrison government, costs for science and maths courses were slashed to encourage students to take up STEM subjects, while arts and humanities fees rose sharply. This change led to university enrolments of students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds falling in some arts subjects, with critics warning of a “segregated” higher education system.
Glover had previously described the scheme as flawed, telling The Australian in May: “It’s clear the JRG reforms have failed.” The timeline for reform has raised concern in the sector. The Western Sydney University vice-chancellor, George Williams, said it would mean the cost of humanities degrees would remain high until at least 2028.
Concerns Over Delayed Action
“The longer it takes to fix Job-ready Graduates, the longer it is that students will be paying unfair fees and taking on unreasonable debt,” Williams said. “This needs to be fixed urgently so every Australian has the opportunity to further their education.”
Glover responded by saying work was already under way to determine how much it cost universities to provide degrees. “I’m confident we’ll deliver a compelling argument to government, and I appreciate the challenges, but I think this work has to be done well, and it’s very challenging to do it more rapidly, because it’s complex,” he said.
Impact on University Funding
Data analysis by Innovative Research Universities, released in February, found that Job-ready Graduates had led to a decline in commonwealth funding for the sector. It said the commonwealth provided $1.2bn less in funding in 2024 than it would have under pre-JRG settings, while the base funding for universities was $813m lower in 2024, despite the increase in student contributions.
The Greens deputy leader, Mehreen Faruqi, also called for an immediate fix, rather than waiting another 18 months. “We should be making uni fee-free, just like it was for the prime minister,” Faruqi said. “Instead we’ve got Labor dragging their heels on the easiest of reforms.”
International Student Numbers and Diversification
Glover, who will next year take charge of allocating international student numbers to universities, has also put the sector on notice to find new sources of funding, warning the international student boom was over. He said international student numbers were flatlining after years of rapid growth, due to caps placed by the government, but believed it would end some of the instability that has rocked the sector.
“Universities at the moment should be carefully planning on stability in international education, rather than growth, and they certainly need to be looking at diversification. That’s been a very key indicator of government,” Glover said. “They should be diversifying if they’re highly reliant on a single market.”
Between 2014 and 2019 the number of international students studying in Australia increased by about 10% year-on-year. That fell dramatically between 2020 and 2022 during the Covid pandemic, before rising 27% in 2023. The past two years have seen a small decline again across some universities, though NSW institutions increased intake by 7.5% between 2024 and 2025.
Risks of Overreliance on International Students
The WA auditor general, Caroline Spencer, released a report in May, highlighting concerns with the “continued reliance on international students to support their [universities’] current financial performance”. She said all universities in the state sat in the medium to high-risk exposure categories for reliance on overseas revenue.
“This dependence is increasingly problematic given recent federal government migration policies aimed at managing international student numbers, which restricted the flow of international students into Western Australia in 2025,” Spencer wrote. “Some of the universities are responding to this risk by expanding or entering into offshore operations. While this may broaden the potential student base, it also introduces other risks which may not be easily mitigated.”
