Beyond $50k arts degrees: what has Job-ready Graduates done to postgrad study?

The Conversation reports that new research from Australian universities shows the Job-ready Graduates scheme—which more than doubled undergraduate arts costs—also transformed postgraduate education. Between twenty nineteen and twenty twenty-four, postgraduate Commonwealth supported places—which receive government subsidies—increased by a third to over fifty-seven thousand, while full-fee postgraduate places dropped eleven percent. Nursing saw the most dramatic shift, with Commonwealth supported places more than doubling to nearly eight thousand, driven by enormous price differences: a critical care nursing certificate at Deakin costs fourteen thousand seven hundred dollars as a full-fee place but just twenty-six hundred thirty-nine dollars with Commonwealth support. Universities prioritized these cheaper subsidised places partly for social reasons—expanding nursing and teaching—but also because declining undergraduate demand left them with excess government funding they wanted to use. As undergraduate enrolments now rebound and the government tightens caps on subsidised student numbers, postgraduate Commonwealth places have likely peaked as priorities shift back to undergraduates.

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