Media Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
3rd February 2025 – The Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations (CAPA) is deeply concerned by the latest Universities Australia report, which reveals an alarming eight percent drop in domestic PhD enrolments between 2018 and 2023. In our 2025-2026 Pre-Budget Submission, CAPA underscored a growing crisis for postgraduate students, exacerbated by inadequate financial support and an unsustainable cost of living. PhD stipends in Australia remain far below living costs. The current base stipend is $33,511 per year. For a candidate working 40 hours per week throughout the year, this equates to just $17.45 per hour or $698 per week. This is significantly lower than the national minimum wage of $24.10 per hour.
“Full-time PhD research, we’re expected to be completing 40 hours a week on our PhD. That’s a full-time jobs equivalent of work. And most PhD students are completing more hours a week than just that 40,” said CAPA National President Jesse Gardner-Russell to the ABC.
“It’s very common for PhD students to come in at 9am and be leaving at 9, 10, 11pm.” Critically, 71% of PhD candidates work over 41 hours per week on their PhD – and they are struggling to make ends meet in this cost-of-living crisis:
“Just think of all of the things that are additional to your life beyond bills and rent and that sort of things that make you happy, and how often you have to think about whether or not you want to do those things,” said CAPA Policy and Research Officer, Maxim Jon Buckley to the ABC.
“Universities may top-up the scholarships, but this creates an impossible choice between offering more scholarships to provide. That is – more opportunities to people like myself from regional Victoria to pursue cutting edge research. Or to provide bigger stipends so that the existing PhD students are better supported. So, it is unfair to say it is the universities fault. Indeed, most universities utilise whatever resources they can to stretch the Federal Government’s funding as far and wide as they can,” said Jesse GardnerRussell on ABC News 24.
Australia’s PhD stipends are not competitive on a global scale. The average PhD stipend in the United States is AUD $67,561.40, nearly double Australia’s base rate. The United Kingdom and Canada recently raised their PhD stipend to AUD $41,372 and AUD $44,000, respectively. “We are competing with countries like Singapore, South Korea, Canada and the European Union who are investing heavily in R&D, and investing in R&D means more PhD students,” said Maxim Jon Buckley.
“There’s misalignment in how our country speaks about valuing building research capability when it pays students at the forefront of this work below the minimum wage … it becomes a labour of love,” said, Jesse Gardner-Russell to the Guardian.
Hence, CAPA implores the Federal Government to consider the following recommendations to support Australia’s future research workforce.
Recommendations:
“In the international scene, PhD research is hugely important and as a country that calls itself the clever country I think it’s really important that we support the people that are driving our reputation,” said Jesse Gardner-Russell to the ABC.
However, the continued decline in domestic PhD enrolments reflects a systemic failure to support students adequately. “We’re talking about the top talent in our country. They are looking at other opportunities, other avenues, which will provide either stable employment and that could be in industry or in the public sector, or at other universities to complete their PhDs in other countries,”
ENDS
Jesse Gardner-Russell | Taylor Broadbent
National President | Media and Communications Director
Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations Inc.
Level 1, 120 Clarendon St, Southbank, Victoria 300