The most popular university degrees in Australia in 2021 depend a lot on whether you’re male or female.
For our Coronavirus & The Class of 2020 report we surveyed over 2000 year 12s from metropolitan, regional and rural Australia and found what university degrees they’re most interested in doing (they could pick more than one if they were considering different options). Here we’ve broken them down by male and female to reveal the differences in interest between them.
The most popular degree with males was Science chosen by 26% of them, followed by Business (22%), Engineering (20%) and Medicine & Health (20%).
Sitting at number one for females was Medicine & Health chosen by 37% of them, followed by Science (24%), Arts & Social Sciences (23%) and Education & Social Work (20%).
The biggest differences in interest between males and females were seen with IT (male 11%, female 2%), Engineering (male 20%, female 5%), Medicine & Health (female 37%, male 20%) and Education & Social Work (female 20%, males 8%).
While they might sound like traditional careers for such a progressive generation, 87% of Gen Z university students want sustainability incorporated into course content to bring learning into the current and future world. With such widespread support it means interest cuts across all university faculties from engineering to arts.
In June 2020 the Australian government announced that they would double the cost of humanities subjects, and decrease the cost of subjects in nursing, psychology, English, languages, teaching, agriculture and maths, science, health, environmental science and architecture, to boost more ‘job-ready’ graduates.
Although it’s good news for STEM students, the announcement has received backlash and started debates of what jobs Australia really needs, and whether there’ll be enough jobs for science students to meet the hype.
Whichever path our young people are choosing, we hope their sense of passion and purpose will propel them through the years.
Degrees Gen Zs want to study:
Architecture & Planning
Male 8%
Female 4%
Art & Design
Male 8%
Female 12%
Arts & Social Sciences
Male 13%
Female 23%
Business
Male 22%
Female 14%
Education & Social Work
Male 8%
Female 20%
Engineering
Male 20%
Female 5%
IT
Male 11%
Female 2%
Law
Male 10%
Female 13%
Medicine & Health
Male 20%
Female 37%
Music
Male 5%
Female 4%
Science
Male 26%
Female 24%
