The Morrison government has left public universities to wither and die. Will it change its tune in Tuesday’s budget?
The past 12 months have been brutal for higher education. Left to wither and die by a government which deliberately excluded public universities from JobKeeper, the sector lost 17,200 jobs and could lose up to $19 billion in revenue over the next three years. And international students — its financial backbone for years — are unlikely to return in numbers any time soon.
Tuesday’s federal budget is a key opportunity for the government to throw higher education a much-needed lifeline. So what, ideally, should it do?
What we know
In the flurry of strategic pre-budget drops, there has been only one real boost for higher education: a $53 million package for private colleges and vocational training centres. Although institutions got JobKeeper, they rely even more on international students
Read more about what the sector wants from Tuesday night’s budget…
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