News reports suggest UTS will suspend 146 courses, affecting around 400 staff. While job losses have dominated headlines, this story is about something broader — the far-reaching impacts that may not yet be front of mind.
So, what’s the impact?
The University of Technology Sydney’s (UTS) decision to suspend new enrolments in its long-running Bachelor of International Studies program has sparked alarm among international education advocates, who say the move undermines national efforts to rebuild Australia’s “Asia capability.”
Yes, keep reading.
The degree, which has operated for more than 30 years, is one of the few remaining programs in the country with a curriculum-embedded semester or year abroad in the Indo-Pacific. Each year, UTS has sent between 50 and 70 students on year-long study programs in Asia – far above the national average of just 20 students per university.
The announcement comes only days after the federal government unveiled major reforms to the New Colombo Plan (NCP), including new Semester Program funding and expanded scholarships, designed to increase the number of undergraduates studying in the Indo-Pacific for extended periods.
Liam Prince, Director of Acicis (the Australian Consortium for In-Country Indonesian Studies), described UTS’ decision as “sending entirely the wrong signal.”
“In a national context where the average Australian university manages only 20 students per year on semester-length Indo-Pacific programs, UTS’ contribution has been vital. To pause this program at precisely the moment when the government is trying to scale up long-duration study in Asia sends the wrong message.”
At its pre-pandemic peak in 2019, Australia sent just 1,800 undergraduates to the Indo-Pacific for a semester or longer. By 2023, that number had halved to only 840. UTS and the Australian National University (ANU) have been among the few institutions sustaining significant long-term mobility into the region.
A victim of sector-wide course cuts
The decision at UTS is part of a broader pattern of course rationalisation across the higher education sector. Since 2017, the Commonwealth Department of Education has capped universities within a largely fixed Commonwealth Grant Scheme (CGS) envelope of $7–8 billion. With no additional growth funding for domestic enrolments, universities have been forced to consolidate programs and cut back on niche degrees, even when they serve vital national interests.
UTS has already attracted media attention this year for widespread program cuts affecting arts, social sciences, and international studies, as it responds to financial pressures. Staff and students have expressed concern that programs which foster global literacy and regional expertise are being treated as expendable.
Prince argued that while the NCP reforms are welcome, they remain “dwarfed” by structural funding constraints, saying,“DFAT’s modest intervention through the New Colombo Plan doesn’t stand a chance of overcoming the enormous countervailing forces of sector-wide course rationalisation. Unless and until the Australian Government lifts its financial contribution to higher education beyond the existing $8.4 billion envelope, programs like UTS’ International Studies degree will keep disappearing.”
He warned that the government’s ambition to expand long-term Indo-Pacific study will be impossible to meet if universities continue dismantling the very pathways that support it.
“We should be establishing more courses with curriculum-embedded pathways to a semester in the Indo-Pacific, not disestablishing one of the few remaining ones we have,” he says.
Acicis, which has facilitated in-country study and internships in Indonesia for more than 5,000 students since 1995, says the sector needs a coordinated policy response that treats Asia capability as a national priority.
So, while it may simply be seen as a course cut or rationalisation, the impact of this particlar cut is far-reaching.
