Canberra's top two universities have revealed significant changes to their enrolments that will see the University of Canberra wind down its teaching at campuses interstate and the ANU halt student growth altogether.
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The University of Canberra currently teaches hundreds of students at campuses outside the capital but for the past six months it has been cutting ties with its host partners, including TAFE Queensland, to free up resources back at its Bruce campus.
Deputy vice-chancellor academic Nick Klomp told Fairfax Media the move was in response to the federal government's funding freeze on domestic undergraduate places that had left institutions scrambling to trim their budgets since December.
"It took us by surprise, we had to react immediately," Professor Klomp said.
While the interstate programs had been growing, he said the ACT's population of school-leavers was booming.
"There's about to be less places, we couldn't have students here miss out...we pride ourselves on being Canberra's university," he said.
This week, the ANU signalled it would halt student enrolment growth to protect quality following a period of rapid expansion.
International enrolments in particular have surged in recent years, rising by almost 2000 students between 2013 and 2016.
Vice-chancellor Brian Schmidt told reporters on Monday the university had reached an appropriate size, but did not mention an explicit cap on student places.
"The university is at a size of roughly 20,000 full-time students and so we're not intending to grow, both international or domestic, we're at the size we need to be," Professor Schmidt said.
"If we get any bigger, we will not be better."
The admission came after federal Labor signalled it was open to a cap on international student places to ensure universities weren't being exploited as pathways into the country.
The university, which is in the midst of an ambitious campus redevelopment, did not provide further information on how enrolment would be managed when contacted on Tuesday. It is understood the process has not yet begun, but has been discussed for some time.
Professor Schmidt told staff earlier this month that in order for the ANU to provide a unique and personal education, it would need to remain relatively small.
Vice-president of the ANU post-graduate and research student association Zyl Hovenga-Wauchope said the move appeared sensible, given that many issues plaguing the student body of late could be linked to the university's rapid growth.
"It demonstrates that maybe it's not all about the dollars and getting international students in," he said.
"But I'd like to see more student services to match that [growth] too."
Association president Alyssa Shaw said a number of colleges were already bursting at the seams as infrastructure failed to keep up with student growth.
While the University of Canberra has recently climbed in a number of world rankings, it has struggled to grow enrolments of late, reporting 106 fewer students in 2018 than the year before according to the QS world ranking.
Staff were told in May that the university had attracted about 5000 fewer students than it had expected in its 2013-17 strategic plan, costing about $120 million in revenue.
But international student commencements jumped by almost 30 per cent this year, a spokesman said. Two thousand new ACT students also enrolled, joining another 1500 starting from interstate.
On Sunday, Labor's employment spokesman Brendan O'Connor called for a crackdown on student visas due to the impact on the labour market.
