Australia’s Big Five universities are pulling away from the rest

Australia’s Big Five universities each have revenue of more than $2 billion a year.

There’s the $2 billion club and the rest. That’s one conclusion you can draw from the latest Academic Ranking of World Universities, the annual league table which ranks universities worldwide by their prowess in research.

The 2022 ranking, released on Monday, reaffirmed that Australia had seven universities in the world’s top 100 – all of the Group of Eight except for the University of Adelaide.

However this year there was a difference. The five top Australian universities – in descending order Melbourne (32nd), Queensland (47th), Sydney (60th), UNSW (64th) and Monash (75th) – all moved up the ARWU ranking. But the bottom two Australian universities in the top 100 – ANU (79th) and Western Australia (99th) both fell compared to last year.

Now we ask: what could explain this cleavage in Australia’s elite research universities.

One difference is in their financial clout, measured by revenue. The top five, which all rose even higher in this week’s rankings, are the same five Australian universities with annual revenue over $2 billion. In 2021 their revenue looked like this: Melbourne ($3.2bn), Queensland ($2.4bn), Sydney ($3.2bn), UNSW ($2.5bn) and Monash ($3.2bn).

It is distinctly different to the annual revenue other three Group of Eight universities which struggle (relatively speaking) in the ARWU rankings. Their annual revenue is: ANU ($1.3bn in 2020 because 2021 results are not yet released), Western Australia ($1.2bn in 2021) and Adelaide ($1bn in 2020).

Neither does any other Australian university come close to having revenue of $2bn a year. It means that there’s the $2bn club, with the Big Five as its exclusive members, and the rest.

In part, the difference between the Big Five and the lesser three in the Group of Eight is numbers of students – particularly numbers of high revenue earning international students.

The Big Five all have more than 15,000 international students, and they have the prestige to pitch their fees high and attract the well-off, high-paying students from China. Even during Covid Chinese students stayed enrolled in large numbers, studying online from their home country, many in study centres which universities had set up for them.

The difference is plain when you count the numbers. The 2020 data shows: Melbourne (21,468 international students), Queensland (15,969), Sydney (23,842), UNSW (16,396), and Monash (32,753). Compare this to ANU (6,573), Western Australia (4,250) and Adelaide (7,487).

The strength in international students translates directly into revenue. Contrast the money they earned in international student fees in 2021. At Melbourne it was $856m, at Queensland $632m, at Sydney a simply gigantic $1.35bn, at UNSW $743m, and at Monash $974m.

That was the Big Five. But for the small three things look different in international student fee revenue. ANU earned $244m (in 2020), Western Australia a tiny $138m (2021) and Adelaide $254m (2020).

For many years it’s been clear that Australia was evolving toward a situation in which it had five very rich, very strong research universities. And now it’s clear that the distance between the Big Five and the rest of the pack is growing. As the bible says, to those that have, much is given.

It’s no coincidence that the big, rich universities are in the biggest, richest states, leaving smaller states to turn to radical thinking in dreaming up ways in which they can have their own “world leading” university. This lies behind the South Australian proposal, currently being studied by the government, to merge its three universities into one mega institution in a Hail Mary move for global recognition.

No-one begrudges (at least we pretend not to begrudge) the Big Five their success. After all, doing world-leading research is very worthwhile, as long as its judged on its merits and not just for its impact on university rankings.

There’s a danger that focusing on research rankings becomes a circular, tail-chasing goal. Invest in research to boost research rankings, to attract more international students, in order to pay for more research.

There’s also the problem that international research rankings, such as the ARWU, pay little attention to research topics which are particular to Australia. Focusing on international rankings can lead to academics ignoring important local problems.

It’s important to recognise that high level research is not the only form of success for university. For the other major task of a university, teaching, it makes little difference for most students whether the university is ranked well in research or not.

As the Big Five play the research rankings game, they also discover the law of diminishing returns. When you get nearer the top, it costs more and more to climb an extra rung and to fend off your competitors.

So let’s be clear. It’s good to be a big university, with a lot of money. But we also recognise that there are responsibilities and climbing the rankings ladder for its own sake is not one of them.

The other side of the coin is the responsibility to focus on research that matters to the community, to the nation and to humanity. And to properly invest in students, and give them an education experience that makes a difference.