Since announcing its business case for a three-way merger of Curtin, Murdoch and UWA, the State Government has sought to justify the proposal through a series of claims about WA universities that do not withstand scrutiny.
These claims have included: “that students in Western Australia’s universities are receiving a ‘sub-par’ education”; “they’re not receiving a good campus experience and the completion rates are not actually what is acceptable”; “WA’s universities are continuing to fall in rankings”; and “are not attracting the students or research investment that we need in WA”.
All comments below are attributable to Curtin University Vice-Chancellor Professor Harlene Hayne:
Evidence must drive decisions about WA’s universities.
Curtin University welcomes the State Government’s focus on strengthening Western Australia’s higher education sector. But we are concerned that the State Government has jumped to a three-way university merger before clearly defining the problem, with its case resting on a series of claims that do not withstand scrutiny.
As academics, we start with the evidence. We define the problem, test the assumptions and then determine the solution. On that basis, several of the claims being used to justify a merger simply do not stack up.
WA universities are not falling in the rankings.
Over the past decade, all four WA public universities have improved in the QS rankings: UWA by 16 places, Curtin by 73, Murdoch by around 100 and ECU by around 230.
In the Times Higher Education rankings, Curtin has improved by 105 places and ECU by around 150, Murdoch has remained broadly stable, while UWA has declined from 111th to 173rd. ARWU is the exception, where all four sit lower than at the start of the period but this reflects a nation-wide drop in ARWU and is largely as a result of the rapid rise of Chinese universities. There is always room for improvement, but we’re heading up, not down.
If size really does matter, then someone should tell Harvard.
There is no evidence that making universities bigger automatically improves their rankings. The world’s top 10 universities in the QS 2027 rankings have an average of around 24,700 students, including elite universities such as Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford and Stanford. The proposed merger of Curtin, Murdoch and UWA would create a mega-university of approximately 120,000 students.
These are not the results of a university sector in decline.
The evidence also shows WA universities are delivering a high-quality student experience. Independent national student, graduate, and employer surveys provide a very different picture from one of a university system in decline. In the 2025 Student Experience Survey, undergraduate student support across WA’s four public universities ranged from 67 to 77 per cent, compared with a Group of Eight average of 66 per cent.
Curtin, ECU, Murdoch and UWA all recorded undergraduate overall experience scores higher than the University of Melbourne and University of Sydney. At postgraduate level, the WA average exceeded the Group of Eight average across all six student experience measures.
Graduate outcomes are similarly strong. The 2025 Graduate Outcomes Survey recorded an average undergraduate median salary of $78,850 across WA’s four public universities, compared with $77,000 nationally and $75,700 across the Group of Eight. And Curtin’s undergraduate full-time employment rate was 82 per cent, compared with 76 per cent nationally.
Three years after graduation, WA graduates were also earning more. The 2026 longitudinal survey reported median salaries for the four public WA universities that averaged $96,400, compared with $93,900 nationally and $94,550 for the Group of Eight.
Employers are also highly satisfied with WA graduates.
Curtin ranked first nationally for overall employer satisfaction in 2023 at 90 per cent and fifth nationally in 2024 at 88 per cent, compared with national averages of 84 and 85 per cent respectively. These are not the results of a university sector in decline.
Curtin agrees that WA needs to attract more international students. International student numbers are in decline nationally, driven by federal caps and visa policy changes, and a merger will not fix this problem. The new Adelaide University’s international student numbers have fallen by roughly 50 per cent this year.
Before the recent federal policy changes were introduced, WA’s international education sector had grown by around 30 per cent in just two years, generating a record $4.3 billion in export income in 2025.
It is also true that we are not attracting the research investment that we need in WA. But a complex federal research funding mechanism means that simply adding universities together does nothing to increase funding. This was the case for the newly merged Adelaide University, where the Federal Government’s 2026 research funding allocation to the merged university was slightly less than the sum of the funding given to the two universities in 2025 when they were separate.
What does attract federal and industry investment is when State Governments lead the way by funding research capability, talent and infrastructure, as demonstrated by Queensland’s multi-billion-dollar Smart State investment, Victoria’s $350 million Higher Education State Investment Fund and New South Wales’ $703.4 million Future Economy Fund.
What do completion rates actually measure?
The State Government has claimed that the WA universities’ “completions rates are not actually what is acceptable”and provided the 2024 completion rates of courses, commenting that at Murdoch it was only 49%, at Curtin it was just a shade over 50%, and UWA was better at 75%. But a completion rate doesn’t measure how many students finished or passed their degree; it simply measures how long it takes them to do it.
Completion rates are an increasingly outdated measure of student success. They measure the proportion of students who complete their degree within six years, reflecting an era when university students were much more likely to study full-time. Today, many of our students are working to support themselves, raising families or caring for ageing parents. They study when and how they can, fitting university around the realities of their lives. Inevitably, that means some take longer to complete their degrees. A better measure of success is how students perform throughout their studies and what happens when they graduate. At Curtin, our students achieve high pass rates, secure employment and are highly regarded by employers, irrespective of how long it takes them to cross the stage at graduation.
It is critical to note that a university merger is not going to increase completion rates. The life circumstances of students will not change overnight due to proximity to students with more fortunate circumstances that enable them to study full-time. This is one of the assumptions that the deeply flawed Deloitte Rapid Cost Benefit Analysis grossly overestimates to justify the benefits of a merger. Students will still have the same jobs, families and caring responsibilities, and many will still need the flexibility to complete their degrees over a longer period that they required before the merger. Indeed, there is a real risk that the disruption and scale of a mega-university could make matters worse, particularly for students who need the greatest levels of support. A merger is more likely to decrease completion rates – or completions altogether – as stressed and vulnerable students inevitably fall through the cracks of a mega-university.
Western Australia should be ambitious for its universities.
The choice is not between doing nothing and undertaking the largest and most disruptive university merger in Australian – and maybe even world – history. Western Australia should be ambitious for its universities. But a reform of this magnitude should be based on a clearly defined problem, tested against the evidence and supported by a compelling case that it will deliver better outcomes for future generations.
The debate about university reform is spirited, as it should be. It should also rest on evidence. Governments should take care not to politicise students, past and present, and anecdotes used to characterise a whole system does a disservice to what they have achieved and to the staff who helped them achieve it.
I am extremely disappointed that our State Government, which should be championing our universities, is instead publicly tearing them down. Their claims are being heard not only here in Australia, but also around the Indian Ocean rim, where Curtin also has campuses. Governments, partners, parents, students and alumni in this wider region are also concerned about the impact of these baseless claims. By the time the State Government produces yet another report that fails to demonstrate the benefits of a three-way merger, my fear is that years of uncertainty, disruption and damaging rhetoric will have done lasting damage to the very sector it claims it wants to strengthen.
