Here’s where USyd lives

Data provided to Honi by the University illustrates significant overrepresentation of the North Shore and Eastern Suburbs among the student body.

There are 38,653 undergraduate students at the University of Sydney. 

26,033 are spread across 96 New South Wales Local Government Areas (LGAs). 

12,296 (32%) are not matched to an LGA, typically international students with overseas addresses listed in Sydney Student, or, more rarely, domestic students with PO boxes or misspelt addresses. A further 324 (0.8%) have interstate addresses.

Many are unsurprisingly concentrated near campus, with the City of Sydney and Inner West LGAs home to almost a quarter of all students. Geographically, students are otherwise relatively evenly distributed around the city.

However, comparing student numbers to the general population of each LGA tells a very different story. 

Compared to their populations, every Western Sydney LGA is underrepresented on campus. 

Affluent LGAs on the North Shore such as Mosman, Lane Cove and Hunters Hill, as well as the Eastern Suburbs LGAs of Woollahra and Waverley, are heavily overrepresented as a proportion of their populations, indicative of significant class disparities within the student body.

Mosman residents are five times more likely to be attending USyd compared to Blacktown residents.

Adjusted for population, the ten most represented LGAs of students are the City of Sydney, Burwood, Hunters Hill, Mosman, Ku-ring-gai, Woollahra, Inner West, Willoughby, Lane Cove and Strathfield.

Overall, the ten most common LGAs of students are the City of Sydney (4153), Inner West (1811), Canterbury-Bankstown (1505), Ku-ring-gai (1365), Northern Beaches (1276), Parramatta (1254), Hornsby (905), The Hills Shire (875), Georges River (873) and Blacktown (861).

The distribution of the student body also largely reflects that of Honi readers.