Uni students left with ‘no choice’ after Covid funding cuts

Changes brought on by the pandemic have left Aussie university students in the lurch, leaving one with the lowest satisfaction rate in the country.

Australian university students say the standard of their education has suffered in the past two years, with cuts to staff and funding leaving them with far fewer options in their studies.

“People who started in 2020 didn’t really have any choices when it came to their courses,” said Macquarie University Arts & Education student Bridget O’Donoghue, after Macquarie cut more than half of their available Arts majors.

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Students claim standard of university education has dropped in the last two years. Picture: AAP

Faced with a drop in revenue in 2020, UNSW Sydney opted to merge its arts and social sciences faculty with both art and design, and built environment.

“I feel like the quality has dropped,” said UNSW final-year Bachelor of Media student Harrison Gourlay. “It’s definitely gotten worse.”

The university reported nearly 500 full-time job losses in 2020, only one year after their controversial implementation of trimesters earned it the lowest student satisfaction rate in Australia.

Mr Gourlay stated that while the pandemic brought about unforeseen difficulties with online learning, the university’s mismanagement of its trimester system is as much to blame.

“Three years on, I’m still getting emails telling me to be accommodating because my courses are being condensed to fit trimesters,” he said.

Changes since the pandemic began have also hampered universities’ administration, students have reported.

“At Macquarie,” Ms O’Donoghue said.

“They’ve cut so many arts staff, I called up the student centre and was told they’d take four weeks to get back to me.”

Similarly, at UNSW’s student hub, “it’s a 14-day wait for an email,” according to Mr Gourlay.

The constant setbacks for university students, particularly in the Arts, has left them feeling unprepared for the workforce.

UNSW reported 500 full-time job loses in 2020. Picture: AAP

“Even with industry placement, it feels like they’re not trying to be particularly helpful, they’re just trying to cross off a checklist,” said Mr Gourlay.

A spokesman from Macquarie stated the university has “revised our curriculum to deliver a selection of high-quality, interdisciplinary and cross-cultural units with a focus on students’ future employability” and pledged to create “new structures within student support to deliver consistent quality of services and support to our students”.

A representative from UNSW said in the three years since the move to trimesters the university had “implemented a number of refinements”, which they say led to “impressive increases in student satisfaction in 2021”.