The Universities are Corrupt Corporations! By James Reed
Dr Raffaele Ciriello in the linked article highlights the growing corporate dominance over Australia's public universities, arguing that financial interests now take precedence over education, research, and academic integrity. He presents a case for urgent reform, emphasizing the impact of governance failures on students, staff, and the future of higher education. As there are very few academics critiquing the universities, I will give a detailed summary, although I disagree.
Public universities in Australia are increasingly managed like businesses, with executives and corporate interests driving decision-making. Vice-chancellors receive exorbitant salaries—16 of 41 earn over $1 million annually—while academics face precarious employment, PhD students live in poverty, and international students contribute significantly to revenue but lack representation in governance, he says.
A flawed governance structure exacerbates these issues. Of 545 university governing body positions, only 137 are elected by staff, students, or graduates, while corporate executives and consultants hold 143. Decisions prioritize financial growth over academic quality. The system also enables wage theft, with universities collectively underpaying staff by over $400 million, while spending vast sums on external consultants rather than educators.
PhD students, crucial to Australia's research sector, suffer financial hardship. The 2025 base stipend is just $33,511 per year ($16 per hour), well below the national minimum wage. International PhD students pay up to $60,000 in tuition while working unpaid and lacking basic employment rights. In contrast, PhD candidates in Germany, Denmark, and Switzerland are paid employees with benefits. This has led to an 8% decline in domestic PhD enrolments since 2018, risking a talent drain to better-funded global institutions.
Australian universities depend heavily on international student fees, which account for up to 40% of revenue. The Covid-19 pandemic exposed the fragility of this model, yet instead of structural reforms, universities continued to cut staff while aggressively recruiting full-fee-paying students. At Monash University, for example, a vice-chancellor earned $1.6 million in 2023, despite the university facing financial deficits and wage theft disputes.
The root problem Ciriello says is a hierarchical governance model that grants unchecked power to unelected administrators. In contrast, European universities and Indigenous governance models emphasize collective decision-making and democratic oversight. Countries like Germany, Switzerland, and Scandinavia have faculty- and student-elected deans and constitutionally protected academic freedom, unlike Australia, where restrictive ethics processes limit research autonomy.
The National Tertiary Education Union's (NTEU) report, Ending Bad Governance — For Good, details the corporate mismanagement of higher education, including $226 million in confirmed wage theft and excessive spending on consultants ($734 million in 2023). With only 25% of university governing body seats held by staff, students, or graduates, decision-making remains dominated by financial interests.
The Parliamentary Inquiry into University Governance, open until 3 March 2025, presents a crucial opportunity to challenge the corporate takeover of universities and push for reforms, Ciriello says. He suggests:
Proposed Reforms to Reclaim Universities
1.Democratize university leadership – Allow faculty, staff, and students to elect key administrators to ensure accountability.
2.Protect academic freedom – Replace restrictive ethics compliance regimes with policies that safeguard critical research.
3.End PhD and casual staff exploitation – Provide fair wages, employment rights, and governance participation.
4.Implement democratic oversight – Shift governance structures away from corporate interests toward cooperative decision-making, inspired by Indigenous and European models.
While it may be worthwhile to make a submission slamming the universities' actions in creating an accommodation crisis by the influx of what is now a million foreign students, all of whom will become permanent residents, none of these proposals will address the core problem that I have argued plague the universities. They are by definition globalist organisations, as the very name indicates, universal. But they then act against the local and national interest, for the international New Class elites. While agreeing with most of the above criticisms, it does not of course deal with the fact that universities have been at the forefront of undermining Western civilisation.
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