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Perth’s Murdoch University and other universities have become heavily reliant on foreign student fees to bolster their incomes. 50 professors from the Australian Research Council’s Laureate Fellowship condemned the decision to take legal action against an associate professor from the university. Deeply concerned about the integrity of academic teaching, the professor complained on television that the university was not only enrolling international students whose English was inadequate but also allow them to graduate.

The national Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) program revealed that Universities across Australia enroll hundreds of thousands of foreign students simply as ‘cash cows’, however unprepared to undertake degree courses. Academics told ABC they have seen record numbers of academic misconduct cases and more and more international students struggling, some using phone apps to translate lectures. Following the ABC broadcast, the National Tertiary Education Union called for greater public accountability for universities in dealing with international students.

Australia's most powerful universities have fallen into line over university admissions standards, recommending wholesale changes in the wake of a Fairfax Media investigation that brought the sector's integrity into question. Up to 99% of applicants for some NSW university degrees have been admitted despite failing to meet the minimum ATAR score advertised for the course.

Federal Education Minister will direct the nation's top education panel to focus on university admissions after a Fairfax Media investigation revealed that the practice of admitting students with lower than the minimum ATAR into university courses was endemic. The move, due to be announced on Wednesday, will see the Higher Education Standards Panel examine options for improving the transparency of student admissions policies. The panel will have up to a year to work on a new university standards framework, which will take effect from January 2017.