Denzel was the first in his family to go to university, but there’s a worrying drop-off in students like him

Denzel James is less likely to be at university than most of his peers.

The Yankunytjatjara man, from a remote area of South Australia, received an ATAR of 27 and is from a low-income family.

But he is the first of his eight siblings to pursue a degree and hopes it will pave the way for them to see university as an achievable pathway as well.

“I’m proud to be the first to study at uni, because I could push my two younger siblings to eventually start preparing to see whether they want to go to university too,” the first-year law student at Victoria University said.

The decline in the proportion of students like James across Victorian universities has been sharp.

Students from low socioeconomic backgrounds made up 12.2 per cent of all undergraduate places in 2024, a drop from 15.3 per cent in 2018, the most recent federal data compiled by the Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success (ACSES) shows.

While some of that is due to a 2021 change in how the data is collected, experts say the rising cost of living, greater availability of jobs and increased course fees have disproportionately affected students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

“Low-socioeconomic students are, broadly speaking, going to be last on and first off across the sectors,” ACSES trials and evaluation program director Tim Pitman said.

“As places expand, they are taken up by the [high-socioeconomic-status] students before the low-SES students come on. And as the sector declines, the low SES students tend to go backwards.”

Victoria’s big four universities – the University of Melbourne, Monash, RMIT and Deakin – had the lowest share of undergraduates from low socioeconomic backgrounds in 2024.

The University of Melbourne, which fared worst, said that since 2023 it had prioritised programs that supported equity students, and it had seen yearly lifts in students gaining access.

A Deakin University spokesperson said it was aware of a modest decline in students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds due to cost-of-living pressures, declining ATAR completion indicating different career choices, and changing patterns of demand.

“We watch these numbers closely and measure ourselves against them,” the spokesperson said.

RMIT University has been simplifying admissions processes, and improving pathways from vocational education into university and through equity scholarships to remove barriers to entry, a spokesperson said.

This year, enrolments of low-socioeconomic-background students have increased at RMIT by 3 per cent for higher education and by 6 per cent for vocational education compared with the year prior.

Victoria University introduced a new block model in 2017 to allow students to do a single subject at a time over four weeks – freeing up time for them to work or care for family members while studying.

It has correlated with completion rates among equity students increasing to 90.82 per cent in 2024, up from 82.75 per cent in 2018, the ACSES data shows.

“People weren’t succeeding fast enough, well enough, strongly enough from various backgrounds,” Victoria University vice chancellor Adam Shoemaker said of why the university changed its model.

“The beauty about the block model is you can work full-time if you’re lucky enough to have a paid job and study full-time. It’s just one subject at a time.”

Since the introduction of the model, fail grades for low-socioeconomic students in STEM subjects have dropped by 46.4 per cent. High distinctions have increased by 82.3 per cent for equity students, and distinctions by 52.5 per cent.

“The quality has been exactly the same. The dimensions of the assessment haven’t been weakened, it’s just the performance has gotten better from students,” Shoemaker said.

Denzel James said the block program had helped him divide his time and achieve better outcomes.

“I can give my full attention to it, not trying to balance different classes and assessments and assignments. I get that opportunity to understand the content more deeply and produce better quality work,” he said.

Recent psychology graduate Athraa Yousif was also the first in her family to go to university, after moving to Australia as a refugee from Iraq.

She had studied education at another university but found the large cohort overwhelming while also having caring responsibilities for her family.

When she started university, she was initially still developing her English and the model’s small class sizes suited her.

“There were a lot of educational gaps as well throughout that refugee journey. It’s taken me some time, but I’m here and slowly building a career as well.”

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