Why Australia's University Employability Push Is Failing Students

The Morrison government's Job-Ready Graduates scheme doubled the cost of Arts degrees to subsidise nursing and teaching. It also created the National Priorities and Industry Linkage Fund, which made university funding conditional on labour-market outcomes, industry engagement, and Work Integrated Learning opportunities. The Albanese government criticised the reforms at the time, then left them in place.

John Mikler, head of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney, said the employability agenda comes from a corporatised executive branch, not from academics. "There's this disconnect that's grown between the self-styled 'executive' of the university … and the rest of the academia," Mikler said. "So these ideas about employability … tend to be coming out of the top levels of the university, not out of the academics who are actually doing all the teaching and the research."

I am a student at the University of Sydney. In my fourth year, instead of doing a research Honours, I filed in and out of classes on 'Interdisciplinarity'. I did faculty-wide group work on real-world problems like the NRL's inability to market to women. I competed with my peers for an 'industry placement' opportunity that turned out to be a glorified cold-calling sales gig. I did none of this actually studying the topics I had signed up for.

One major problem with these employability programs is guaranteeing enough WIL opportunities for all students. The programs often force students to compete for limited spots, which makes existing inequities worse. Dr Sally Patfield, a higher education researcher at the University of Newcastle, said these opportunities work best for students who are already well-positioned to take them. "By contrast, students who are mature-aged, first-in-family, or living with disability, for example, are often balancing paid work, caring responsibilities, or might have additional access needs," Patfield said.

The alternatives for students who miss out can be grim. The University of Sydney offered SSPS 4111: The Future of Work, an academic unit on changes in "the quantity and quality of jobs". Instead of working, students could study why they cannot find it. The course seemed designed to prepare students for future conversations with Centrelink officers.

The program I took – the combined Bachelor of Advanced Studies – has just been canned. After a decade at the centre of USyd's employability agenda, it failed to convince students of its value. Of the many students, teachers and academics I spoke to, few understood what the program really offered, why it was implemented, or why it was killed. The logic behind it, however, remains alive. A University spokesperson told me, "Industry engagement, interdisciplinary learning and practical experience remain central to how we prepare graduates for a changing workforce and society."

Many in the sector see the importance of industry engagement, especially WIL. The head of WIL at UNSW Engineering cited their placement program as one of the most valuable parts of the degree and wanted to embed WIL further in education. "We've all had the experience of showing up to our first job, and it's nothing like what we studied," they said.

For some faculties, programs must evolve to reflect their fields. Conforming education to market expectations is anathema to the entire premise of the Liberal Arts. How are universities supposed to critique society if they are too busy asking what society wants from them? If that sounds grandiose, the moral question usually runs into a more mundane one. What does anyone teach a literature student to prepare them for the job market?

Arts degrees were not built to be practical. That does not mean they are not useful. It means universities should double down on what they are supposed to create: critical thinkers, adept researchers, clear writers. Unpaid consulting work for the University's corporate partners will never do this.

The whole exercise looks more absurd when you consider the looming impact of AI on the job market. Many of the practical skills this employability drive claims to offer are the exact ones being phased out by AI. The skills that make a good student are the only ones that, so far, cannot be replaced. AI is good enough to write a work email. It still makes a dreadful essay, article or short story. It has replaced the Google search, lacks the experience and contextual awareness of a good researcher. It can summarise information, cannot really judge it independently. At least not reliably enough to replace us yet.

Australia's universities are underselling themselves to a market that is evaporating.