The Morrison government shook up the higher education funding system last year. A key selling point — in addition to steering students into courses that would produce “job-ready graduates” — was the promise of creating more places for university students. As Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said in his budget speech in May, “as a result of decisions made during the pandemic, this year there are 30,000 more places at Australian universities”.

Given many students would be expected to pay a lot more for their courses, an increase in places every year until 2030 – 100,000 more in all – was an important sweetener. But, at the time, experts writing in The Conversation did question whether the policy design and funding were up to the task. Universities are bleeding from the revenue losses of the pandemic – few could afford to provide places that aren’t covered by their Commonwealth subsidies.

Today, based on an analysis of the latest university funding agreements, Mark Warburton confirms just how big the funding shortfall is – as much as $1.1 billion short of what’s needed to support the extra places meant to be created by 2024. This year alone, the deficit equates to 39,000 places.

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