Atec head rules out immediate changes to Job-ready Graduates program despite calling it a failure

The man tasked with reforming the controversial Job-ready Graduates (JRG) program says he will not recommend any interim measures to reduce the $50,000 cost of arts degrees, despite calling the scheme a failure.

Under the scheme introduced by the Morrison government, costs for science and maths courses were slashed to encourage students to take up Stem subjects, while arts and humanities fees rose sharply. The change led to university enrolments of students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds falling in some arts subjects, with critics warning of a “segregated” higher education system.

Barney Glover, the new head of the Australian Tertiary Education Commission (Atec), told Guardian Australia he would provide advice to the government on funding for degrees in the second half of next year.

“I absolutely appreciate the frustration of people who’d like to see immediate action on Job-ready Graduates,” Glover said.

“Our mandate is to get compelling evidence for change at a time when governments, not just here in Australia, but around the world, are under pressure in terms of investment in education.”

He had previously said the scheme was flawed, telling The Australian in May: “It’s clear the JRG reforms have failed.”

The timeline has raised concern in the sector. The Western Sydney University vice-chancellor, George Williams, said it would mean the cost of humanities degrees would remain high until at least 2028.

“The longer it takes to fix Job-ready Graduates, the longer it is that students will be paying unfair fees and taking on unreasonable debt,” Williams said.

“This needs to be fixed urgently so every Australian has the opportunity to further their education.”

Glover said work was already under way to determine how much it cost universities to provide degrees.

“I’m confident we’ll deliver a compelling argument to government, and I appreciate the challenges, but I think this work has to be done well, and it’s very challenging to do it more rapidly, because it’s complex.”

Data analysis by Innovative Research Universities, released in February, found Job-ready Graduates had led to a decline in commonwealth funding for the sector. It said the commonwealth provided $1.2bn less in funding in 2024 than it would have under pre-JRG settings, while the base funding for universities was $813m lower in 2024, despite the increase in student contributions.

The Greens deputy leader, Mehreen Faruqi, also called for an immediate fix, rather than waiting another 18 months.

“We should be making uni fee-free, just like it was for the prime minister,” Faruqi said.

“Instead we’ve got Labor dragging their heels on the easiest of reforms.”

Glover, who will next year take charge of allocating international student numbers to universities, has also put the sector on notice to find new sources of funding, warning the international student boom was over.

He said international student numbers were flatlining after years of rapid growth, due to caps placed by the government, but believed it would end some of the instability that has rocked the sector.

“Universities at the moment should be carefully planning on stability in international education, rather than growth, and they certainly need to be looking at diversification. That’s been a very key indicator of government,” Glover said.

“They should be diversifying if they’re highly reliant on a single market.”

Glover took on the Atec role after serving as commissioner of Jobs and Skills Australia, and was a former vice-chancellor of Western Sydney University.

The government controls overall overseas student intake, but from 2027, Atec will have the power to allocate those numbers across the universities, via negotiation.

“Having been a vice-chancellor, I know when you have growth, it’s great, because it’s important to bring international students to Australia, but I think right now it’s going to be a period, hopefully, of stability,” Glover said.

“If you take the volatility out, then universities don’t have the same unfortunate need to respond through restructure and downsizing and redundancies.”

Between 2014 and 2019 the number of international students studying in Australia increased by about 10% year-on-year. That fell dramatically between 2020 and 2022 during the Covid pandemic, before rising 27% in 2023. The past two years have seen a small decline again across some universities, though NSW institutions increased intake by 7.5% between 2024 and 2025.

The WA auditor general, Caroline Spencer, released a report in May, highlighting concerns with the “continued reliance on international students to support their [universities’] current financial performance”.

She said all universities in the state sat in the medium to high-risk exposure categories for reliance on overseas revenue.

“This dependence is increasingly problematic given recent federal government migration policies aimed at managing international student numbers, which restricted the flow of international students into Western Australia in 2025,” Spencer wrote.

“Some of the universities are responding to this risk by expanding or entering into offshore operations. While this may broaden the potential student base, it also introduces other risks which may not be easily mitigated.”