ABSTRACT
In an article outlining for the 1959 Year Book of Education the development of Australia's universities, W. F. Connell listed ten foundations, the first in 1850, the last in 1949, and all but three before 1930. 1 It is some measure of the revolution through which Australian tertiary education has passed in the last decade that to bring this list up to date Connell would now have to add another seven universities, three of them pre-existing colleges which have achieved independent status, the other four entirely new foundations. This growth has reflected a lively national reaction to the shock of discovering in 1957 how serious a crisis Australia's universities were then facing. The Prime Minister's Murray Committee in that year pointed up the burdens being carried by universities suffering from the cumulative effects of interwar neglect, post-war pressure of student numbers and uncertain finances, and warned of an impending avalanche of enrolments which could be expected to double the country's university population within eight years. The Committee urged emergency grants to aid existing universities and found new ones, and it recommended that an Australian Universities Commission be set up to advise the Commonwealth on universities’ financial requirements and to help promote rational and coherent development. Substantial government acceptance of the Committee's report heralded a ‘new deal’ for university education in Australia.
