In the previous post, I outlined how the minister would set total numbers of Commonwealth supported student places if the Universities Accord (Opening the Doors of Opportunity) Bill 2026 is passed. This post looks at how the Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC) will allocate CSPs to public universities. ATEC will also allocate places to other higher education providers, discussed in a later post.

To recap on the previous post, ATEC will allocate places from a ‘total allocation pool’ (TAP) determined by the minister. ATEC will not allocate medical places, which the minister will do. ATEC will also not allocate demand driven places, currently Indigenous students in bachelor degrees or medicine.

All legislative references in the following text are to the Higher Education Support Act 2003 unless otherwise specified, ‘current’ signalling the legislation now in force, ‘new’ signalling the amending bill.

Feedback is welcome via the comments or direct communication. This is complex legislation and I may misunderstand things. Three revisions to my first post so far.

Total number of Commonwealth supported places per university

The total number of CSPs allocated to a university will be known as their ‘domestic student profile’: new section 30-15(2).

The domestic student profile will have up to two components, the ‘core student load’ and an ‘additional growth allocation’: new section 30-25.

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