University of Melbourne vice-chancellor Glyn Davis has blamed rising criticism of universities on "incoherent" demand-driven government policy that expands student numbers on campuses but then complains about the cost of educating them.

In a message to staff at his university last week Professor Davis said some of the attacks on universities were part of a general assault on scholarship, while others reflected "concern about the size of contemporary universities, and a worry that undergraduate education has been sacrificed to other organisational goals".