By Madeleine Crabtree
Last month, the ANUSA Education Committee’s (EdCom) scholarship reform team ran a presentation to the ANU, to inform student perspectives and work leading into three University workshops on where the ANU’s ‘equity strategy’ should go. This comes in light of recent discourse surrounding the equity of scholarships at the ANU, particularly the Tuckwell Scholarship.
EdCom’s Co-convener, Isabella Coombs, started the presentation by exploring the context of the university as it currently stands and why we find ourselves in a situation with underrepresented cohorts, especially when it comes to low socioeconomic status (SES) and regional/remote/rural (RRR) students.
Coombs asserted that federal needs-based funding, introduced by the Australian Government from 1 January 2026, acted as an incentive for the ANU. It would be intended to increase student intake from these backgrounds and further diversify the university community.
This funding “provide[s] universities with additional per-student funding contributions over and above core Commonwealth Supported Place (CSP) funding”. It aims “to better support students from underrepresented backgrounds (including students from low SES backgrounds and First Nations students) to complete their studies”.
ANUSA Education Officer, Aurora Neumann, continued the discussion with an analysis of the ANU’s current approach. She noted that the university’s “strategy and support systems do not work in their current form,” with the ANU having lower equity enrolments in comparison to other Group of Eight (Go8) institutions.
She noted that the ANU had changed its reporting mechanisms on meeting equity measures since 2023. In 2023, these mechanisms were “transparent”, with the ANU openly acknowledging it had not met its performance target to increase commencing domestic undergraduates from equity backgrounds.
However, by 2024, “the metric was rewritten”. The ANU shifted its definition of success to achieving “greater than one per cent annual increase year-on-year” which Neumann labelled a “far easier benchmark”. As a result, despite enrolments increasing by only three First Nations students, nine low-SES students, and 22 RRR students, the ANU reported 2024 as a “successful” year.
In 2025, the definition of success on meeting equity measures changed again, requiring only three of the five equity sub-measures (domestic, international, First Nations, low-SES, RRR) to meet the target for the year to be considered successful.
“By lowering the bar, the ANU made it possible to claim progress without meaningfully improving access or outcomes for the communities these measures are meant to support,” said Neumann.
The presentation then looked at opportunities where the university can move forward. This could look like drawing from enrolments in which the ANU consistently achieves equity targets in, for example women in non-traditional areas of learning and research, and students with a disability. EdCom also looked to take inspiration from action taken by other Australian universities. For example, they suggested the University of Sydney’s ‘Green Guide’, a resource created for educators to “enhance the learning experiences of students from equity backgrounds”.
Neumann also discussed how, in Australia’s current cost-of-living crisis, “rental assistance is possibly the most integral wrap-around support to be included in scholarships”.
With the ANU’s most affordable on-campus accommodation, Burton and Garran Hall (B&G), costing residents up from $310 a week (rising to $322 a week in 2027), Neumann asserted that “simple cash offers don’t make meaningful enough dents, and to many seem like a band aid solution”. She concluded this causes a need for rent to be targeted in scholarships.
ANUSA General Representative, Audrey Storer, another member of the scholarship reform team, continued the presentation, focusing on “residential scholarships and the caveats with support and cultural attitudes”. With residential hall support and college culture being a major driver in many students coming to the ANU, Storer stated that the Residential Experience Division’s (RED) centralisation of residential hall leadership structures have “eroded this culture and the ability for students to contribute in a meaningful way”.
As one instance, prior to RED centralisation, B&G had a Treasurer and a Secretary on its executive, both of which earned 30 per cent off rent each year. As of this year, these roles have been merged into one and the scholarship given to the combined role was substantially decreased. Storer stated that this left “the recipient of that role massively overworked and forcing executives to hastily redistribute responsibilities causing great stress and disorganisation”.
Storer continued, “if the scholarship system is failing, the community is failing, and the huge pull of the ANU’s ‘campus life’ gets diminished […] I’d like to remind that B&G, which usually has a waiting list 60 people long, started this year with 70 empty beds”.
The presentation included many suggestions for improving residential scholarships, for example introducing an online space for scholarship recipients along with regular events focused on financial planning, academic skills, and university navigation sessions.
ANUSA General Representative, Nick Barr, then spoke on the fact that “academic college-based scholarship systems and supports need investigation”. He suggested that there was a lack of information and ease for scholarship recipients about applying to change their coursework load, and the experience of being locked into a degree.
On this, Barr stated that “coming from a diverse or less well-off background can mean choosing degrees based on what is thought of to be ‘stable’ or provide the most [stability], however, when the actual reality of these degrees hit, they no longer seem fit to the student. [Despite this] there is almost no flexibility in changing degrees or scholarships”.
An ANU spokesperson stated, in regards to the Tuckwell Scholarship, “the University is proud of the Tuckwell Scholarship Program and the opportunities it provides to outstanding students from across Australia”.
They added that “ANU welcomes respectful and constructive discussions about its programs and values the diversity of views within its community,” and suggested prospective students could look forward to the new Vice-Chancellor Scholars Program.
Students can read more about the program here.
Overall, it is clear that students feel there is a lot of work to be done in improving the equity of scholarships at the ANU. However, Neumann remarked that the beginning of EdCom’s University workshops marked the start of “some very exciting and important conversations across our institution”.
“EdCom’s team will continue to work with the university in the form of representation at these workshops as well as continued conversations over the next few months”.
More to come.
Graphics by Anushkaa Ahuja
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