When a student chooses to attend the University of Sydney, they’re promised a package deal that is allegedly inclusive of a rich cultural heritage and maybe even a job with a competitive salary after graduating, since the university is ranked fourth in the QS World rankings for graduate employability. When asked about the graduate employability ranking, an anonymous student said, “It’s up there, but fourth worldwide for employability is a little ridiculous.”
What do the numbers say though? To truly understand where the university stands in terms of offering its students employment opportunities post-graduation, we compared the university to its other Australian counterparts from the Group of Eight which are seven other equally large and research-intensive universities. And the University of Sydney is supposedly the most elite of them all.
Since no information is published directly by the University’s Careers Centre on specific statistics regarding employment outcomes of graduates, we used the latest Graduate Outcomes Survey (GOS) from 2022 published under The Australian government’s Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching (QILT) initiative and the numbers do tell a different tale.
The GOS report shows that over 7.3% of graduates in 2022 had no labor force participation, a shocking number that doesn’t quite align with the university’s claim of ranking fourth worldwide in graduate employability. These statistics also call for more transparent reporting of graduate outcomes on the Careers Centre’s part as they are essential to assess students’ overall employment prospects. These could help ensure that students are adequately prepared for the challenges of the modern workforce and can make informed decisions about their education and future career paths.
The scatterplot above shows that USyd’s Labor force participation rate in 2022 stood at 92.7% compared to UNSW’s 94.9%, a marginal difference but still closer to the performances of universities ranked much lower by the QS rankings. When looking at the median salary, the University of Sydney again falls short of the top spot. Although the University ranks second among the Go8, this isn’t reflected by a significant margin over its counterparts. With the current cost of living crisis, the need for graduate placements with a greater median salary is only growing, especially for graduates in Sydney which remains Australia’s most expensive city.
This discrepancy between median salaries also creates a financial burden on students, since the costs of tuition also differ greatly between the two institutions. The GOS study observes that the University of Sydney remains a more expensive option for prospective students while also having a lower median salary after graduation.
According to the U.S. News Rankings, another “recognized leader” in university rankings, The University of Sydney is ranked much higher than the University of New South Wales but unfortunately, this isn’t quite reflected in its labor force participation or its graduate median salary.
When viewed from another lens, student satisfaction throughout the education process also remained quite low. Covered by Honi previously, the quality of the entire education experience for students remained the lowest with a score of 68.8 which brought USyd’s ranking 40th nationally and the worst among the Go8 universities.
The 2024 GOS collection started on October 24, 2023, and will run over its last period in May 2024.
