More Australians will get the opportunity to study for a university degree from next year, with more support for students from regional and rural Australia after the Morrison Government’s Job-ready Graduates legislation passed today.
Starting next year:
- There will be more university places for Australian students, growing to 100,000 additional places in ten years.
- Regional students and regional universities will benefit from additional support worth more than $400 million, including access to a $5,000 scholarship to help with relocation costs.
- Students will pay less to study in areas of expected future job demand, with discounted fees for teaching, nursing, clinical psychology, English and languages, agriculture, maths, science, health, architecture, environmental science, IT and engineering.
- A $900 million ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Priorities and Industry Linkage Fund will support universities to work with local industry to produce job-ready graduates.
Minister for Education Dan Tehan said the Job-ready Graduates package was part of the Government’s plan for education to help drive Australia’s recovery from COVID-19.
“The Job-ready Graduates package is focused on Australian students. It will create more places at university for more Australians and it will lower the cost of subjects for students who study in areas of expected job growth,” Mr Tehan said.
“Australia will need more science, technology, engineering and mathematics skilled workers to help drive our economic recovery and there will be more jobs that rely on those skills.
“In this year’s budget we provided $550 million for 12,000 extra university places and 50,000 short course places plus an additional $1 billion for university research as part of our plan for education.
“This means, from next year, up to 30,000 more Australians will get the opportunity to benefit from a higher education.
“Our reforms will ensure more Australians from regional and rural areas get the opportunity of a university education and are supported to succeed.
“The newly created ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Priorities and Industry Linkage Fund will drive universities to be more responsive to the needs of Australian businesses and to design education that helps prepare students for the jobs of the future.
“The Bill also provides more money and more certainty for universities. University funding will grow by $2 billion to 2024 and the Bill locks in indexation at pre-COVID rates for the next three years.”
