Australians will experience lower standards of living if the nation’s universities continue to fall behind international counterparts, the sector’s peak body warns.

With public funding already drying up, universities face a financial drought as the Albanese government tightens the tap on lucrative international student arrivals.

This will further diminish the ability of tertiary institutions to deliver productivity-boosting research and train Australia’s next generation of high-skill workers, Universities Australia chair and UniSA vice chancellor David Lloyd says.

“Imagine how economically self-destructive it would be for the government to ban shiploads of iron ore from leaving our ports, yet that is exactly what it is doing to our higher education sector,” he will tell the National Press Club on Wednesday.

Amid billions of dollars in funding shortfalls, government spending on research and development as a proportion of GDP has fallen to its lowest level on record, leaving universities reliant on international students to bankroll research.

Left untreated, Australia will lose out on the economic opportunities presented by burgeoning technologies like artificial intelligence, clean energy and AUKUS submarines.

That matters to all Australians, who stand to miss out on social and economic dividends.

“Australia doesn’t aspire to be average in any other global competition, yet our parties seem to be acceptant of performing far below average in this most crucial of domains,” Lloyd says.

In an appeal for bipartisan support to increase funding, he invokes the spectre of former prime ministers revered by both sides of the political aisle for their development of the sector – Robert Menzies and Bob Hawke.

Without increased support, the government’s target to increase the proportion of working-age people with a tertiary education from 60 to 80 per cent by 2050 is under threat. That could mean a windfall of $240 billion to the economy is lost.

“These are the two paths before the major parties,” Lloyd says.

“One for the betterment of Australia and Australians, the other almost certain to damage the prosperity of our and future generations.

“What good is a $22.7 billion investment to build a Future Made in Australia without the research and development work required to spur the growth of new industries?

“We can’t afford to kick the can down the road, not when our productivity, economic growth and a major component of the government’s own agenda depends on this work.”

– AAP