Leading Australian universities ditch entry guarantees

Australia’s oldest universities have discarded their guaranteed entry schemes for top-performing high school students, amid rolling changes to the funding of undergraduate degrees.

The University of Melbourne has removed Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) guarantees for admission into its courses in 2027, ending a longstanding practice whereby students were all but assured of places if they exceeded threshold scores in their final school assessments.

From next year, only “equity” students – such as Indigenous Australians and people from low socio-economic status (SES) neighbourhoods – will qualify for Melbourne’s ATAR guarantees.

The University of Sydney has jettisoned a similar scheme, after domestic student quotas were set as part of a shift to a proposed system of “managed growth”. Under the proposals, universities that exceed their quotas by more than 5 per cent or 750 enrolments will face stiff financial penalties and will be unable to accept fees from the excess students.

Other Sydney universities have increased their ATAR thresholds in response to the proposals, according to The Sydney Morning Herald. The University of Queensland (UQ) has not yet changed its admission rules in preparation for the incoming system, but it told a Senate committee that it would have to consider doing so under “strict managed growth settings”.

UQ said students routinely applied for multiple courses, and those who missed the ATAR benchmarks for their first-choice degrees often accepted places in programmes with less demanding thresholds. Consequently, to restrict admissions, the university would need to raise the cut-off scores for “lower ATAR” disciplines such as arts, teaching and business management.

This would have most impact on low-SES students, who were “more heavily represented among our lower ATAR applicants”, the university said.

Western Sydney University (WSU) also said it had not changed its cut-off scores for 2027 but was keeping the option open. “We are closely monitoring competitor behaviour [and] may need to adjust our admissions settings,” it told Paul Scarr, deputy chair of the Senate committee that scrutinises education-related legislation.

While the committee has recommended passage of the bill outlining the changes, opposition and cross-bench senators raised significant objections to the managed growth proposals.

The bill aims to improve stability for regional and outer metropolitan institutions, whose share of sector funding has declined as the prestigious universities in the three biggest cities became richer. Education minister Jason Clare blames this on a “hunger games” environment in which large institutions expand at their smaller counterparts’ expense.

Institutional accounts show that the five wealthiest institutions pocketed 38 per cent of the sector’s revenue last year, up from 35 per cent before the pandemic. The increase was driven mainly by changes in earnings from overseas students, with the five universities claiming 51 per cent of international education revenue in 2025, up from 44 per cent in 2019. The five’s share of domestic teaching subsidies has declined slightly over the past five years.

Nevertheless, WSU said tighter management of domestic enrolments was needed. “Over the last decade, a minority of large metropolitan universities have grown by an average of 10 per cent while enrolments in member universities of the 2050 Alliance [formerly the Innovative Research Universities network] have declined by 16 per cent,” it told Scarr.

“The sector is characterised by a market-driven system which fails to treat education as a public good.”

WSU estimates that its subsidised enrolments are 15.5 per cent above its quota this year – well over the 5 per cent buffer proposed in the legislation. Monash University policy expert Andrew Norton said this could add to the pressure on Clare, whose seat is in western Sydney, to “soften” the proposed penalties for over-enrolment. “Does he seriously plan to cut places in his own electorate?”

The Senate is expected to debate the legislation over the coming fortnight.

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com