Universities struggle to understand why the government doesn’t love them.
Since COVID, universities have lost billions of dollars and shed over 17,000 staff. The government excluded them from Jobseeker, which threatened their viability for teaching and research.
Universities train everyone from primary teachers to corporate bankers. Until recently, universities were the country’s third largest exporter. Their research underpins economic innovation and COVID recovery.
So why has the government been letting them suffer?
It may be as simple, journalist George Megalogenis argued in the most recent Quarterly Essay, as a harsh dating maxim. The government is just not that into them.