<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <docID>339040</docID> <postdate>2025-02-25 11:29:30</postdate> <headline>Unis often inflate their importance: UTS chancellor</headline> <body><p><img class=" wp-image-339041" src="https://citynews.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/20220901001696521133-original-1-scaled.jpg" alt="" width="1084" height="723" /></p> <caption>Universities often inflate their claims of importance, UTS chancellor Catherine Livingstone says. (Lukas Coch/AAP PHOTOS)</caption> <p class="wire-column__preview__author"><span class="kicker-line">By <b>Andrew Brown</b> in Canberra</span></p> <p><strong>Australian universities have displayed a "tin ear" for concerns with the community and alienated both sides of politics, the head of one of Australia's largest tertiary institutions says.</strong></p> <p>University of Technology Sydney chancellor Catherine Livingstone said universities had often inflated their claims of importance to the community, while ignoring issues such as the impact of immigration and housing affordability caused by the sector.</p> <p>In an address on Tuesday to the Universities Australia Solutions Summit in Canberra, Ms Livingstone said the sector had often been overstating its importance</p> <p>"We've been focused in optimising our own economics with ever increasing numbers of international students, with an apparent tin ear to community concerns on the perceived impact of immigration on housing availability," she said.</p> <p>"Continuing to assert our value in generic terms around student and research outcomes, coupled with entitled demands for more money, is not serving the engage the trust of our key stakeholders."</p> <p>Ms Livingston said many universities had been in "denial" about the role they played in several issues to the extent they were perceived as being out of step.</p> <p>"Inevitably, this has led to concerns being raised about the governance at universities," she said.</p> <p>"For a sector that's funded with significant public money, there is more reference to global aspirations and rankings than there is to the contribution to Australia's prosperity and wellbeing."</p> <p>The university chancellor said more needed to be done for students at their institutions to ensure they were getting educational value.</p> <p>"For students, we're selling a product with an embedded promise of a graduate premium which, arguably, is itself diminishing. And we're selling it on deferred interest-bearing payment terms," she said.</p> <p>"In other sectors, we would be required to have a formal product disclosure statement on policy engagement."</p> <p>While the tertiary sector and the federal government had worked together on reforms, known as the University Accords, Ms Livingstone said it represented a "missed opportunity".</p> <p>"It's essential now that the sector itself engages and really drives the process of understanding and demonstrating its role," she told the summit.</p> <p>"We all need to stop admiring this problem as we have been doing for more than two decades, and find a way forward.</p> <p>"We owe it to the country, but more importantly, to the well being of the generation about to enter the system."</p> </body>