Trends in student enrolments for Australian bachelor degrees: is the present growth strategy sustainable?

The Rudd Labor Government in 2009 endorsed a target of 40 per cent of 25-34 year olds having at least a bachelor degree by 2025. To achieve this goal and an associated low socioeconomic participation target domestic student intake caps were removed and Australian higher education institutions were encouraged to enrol at least 50,000 more domestic degree students by 2013. The very variable responses of individual universities, mainly for commencing bachelor student enrolments, are examined in this paper. Principal findings include that: (1) overall, domestic bachelor commencing student numbers for higher education institutions increased by more than 53,500 in the period 2009 to 2013, a 27.5 per cent increase - exceeding the government target; (2) corresponding overseas commencing bachelor enrolments actually declined by more than 6,800, a 9.7 per cent decrease, during the same period; a number of factors, including a displacement effect of increased domestic numbers, may be responsible; and (3) female students represent 59 per cent of enrolees, well above the population demographic of 49 per cent for the 15 to 34 year age group; (4) the increased domestic enrolments have resulted in a higher proportion of the students being over 25 years of age, studying full-time, off-campus with no significant gender balance change; and (5) based on current enrolments and completion trends achieving the 40 per cent domestic graduate target by 2025 is possible, but challenging. The conclusion is that increased government per capita funding and/or a measure of fee deregulation will be essential to achieve the 2025 target of producing many more internationally competitive graduates.

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