Australian unis slash staff and courses as wages rise, foreign student curbs bite

Humanities subjects particularly hard hit; universities cut 3,578 jobs in 2024, 2025

- Jonathan Pearlman

SYDNEY - Australian universities have slashed entire courses and let go of staff — particularly in the humanities — to stay afloat as they grapple with rising wages as well as a cap on the intake of international students, which hurts profitability.

One of Australia's leading universities, the Australian National University, has cut more than 200 positions through redundancies and voluntary departures as it seeks to find savings of A$250 million (S$208.6 million) by 2026.

Other universities following suit include Western Sydney University, which plans to slash up to 400 jobs, and Macquarie University, which is looking to cut up to 60 academic staff from the Arts and Science and Engineering faculties.

The latest institution to announce cuts was the University of Technology Sydney, which revealed on Aug 14 that it was suspending enrolment in more than 100 courses as it seeks to cut 400 staff. The hardest-hit faculties include Design and Society as well as Health.

According to an analysis provided to The Sunday Times by the National Tertiary Education Union, universities announced cuts amounting to 3,578 jobs in 2024 and 2025.

The decision to scale back humanities programmes was prompted by a decline in interest in these courses in recent years.

Professor Andrew Norton of Monash University, an expert on Australian universities, told ST that humanities enrolments have been declining in recent years, possibly due to the emergence of a generation of students who grew up with social media and were less inclined to enrol in studies that required reading lengthy texts.

"There are fewer and fewer students in the humanities, and more subjects are falling below the threshold of viability," he said.