The Australia Institute analysis exposes how much Aussie universities spend on consultants, travel, ads

The spending habits of Australia’s top universities have been revealed. Read how much SA’s unis spent on marketing and consultants.

The spending habits of Australia’s top universities have been revealed.

Australia’s public universities are spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year on marketing, consultants and travel, prompting calls for greater scrutiny.

Analysis by The Australia Institute shows UniSA spent $12m on marketing, advertising and promotion in 2023, just outspending Flinders University’s $11m bill.

However, there was no comparable figure in the report, released on Wednesday, for the University of Adelaide.

It spent $35.5m on “consultants and specialist services” in 2023 and UniSA spent $83m on “external services”, but there was no comparison for Flinders University.

Ten institutions around the country spent more than $390m collectively on travel in 2023, although data was not presented in the report for any SA site.

Report author Joshua Black argues the inconsistency in available financial information is evidence the sector needs clearer reporting guidelines.

“The annual reports of Australia’s public universities clearly show how wealthy these institutions are,” he writes.

“Universities need to be more transparent about their discretionary spending, so that staff and students can see exactly where the money spent in their name is going.”

In 2023, the report notes 27 universities “with the most directly comparable annual reports” spent nearly $410m on consultants – or an average of more than $15m.

A total of 37 institutions spent more than $360m on marketing, advertising and promotion.

University of NSW topped the list ($24m) while University of Canberra spent the least ($3m).

The report makes recommendations including:

REQUIRING itemised disclosures of what is spent with each consultancy firm.

CLEARER disclosure rules for overseas travel expenses.

CAPS on how much each university can spend on executive travel costs.

NATIONALLY consistent reporting categories for universities to gain a better understanding of “aggregate figures” across the sector.

“Few would argue with the need for universities to procure external legal advice or IT

services, and university executives would likely protest that these make up a large portion of

the generic ‘consultancy’ figures in their annual reports,” Mr Black writes.

“But such complaints illustrate the argument for more transparency, not less.”

All three SA universities were contacted for a response.

Originally published as The Australia Institute analysis exposes how much Aussie universities spend on consultants, travel, ads