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About Sydney and NSW > People, skills and education

Higher Education Students

More than 320,000 domestic and international students (including offshore students) were enrolled in New South Wales higher education institutions in 2007. Management and commerce attracted the highest number of over students, with 94,000 students enrolled in accounting, management, marketing, and banking and finance courses. The State also has a high concentration of students in the society and culture field, which includes which includes economics, law and languages, and architecture and building.

Around 77,000 students graduated from New South Wales higher education institutions in 2007, 39% of whom completed postgraduate degrees.

Australia's higher education facilities are world class, as demonstrated by the THES-QS World University Rankings 2008. According to the report, Australia is home to six of the world’s top 50 universities, ranking it third behind the United States and the United Kingdom. Two New South Wales institutions, the University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales, are placed in the world's top 50.1

New South Wales also has five universities in the top 100 Asia-Pacific academic institutions, as ranked by the prestigious Shanghai Jiao Tong Academic Ranking of World Universities 2008. 2


Number of higher education students by state and broad field of education, 2007 1

  NSW Vic Qld Australia
Broad field of education No. of students % of Aust. No. of students % of Aust. No. of students % of Aust. No. of students
Natural and physical sciences 22,028 28.5 21,586 28.0 14,059 18.2 77,195
Information technology 13,442 26.5 17,856 35.2 9,316 18.4 50,733
Engineering and related technologies 19,778 28.4 21,524 30.9 12,177 17.5 69,642
Management and commerce 94,049 30.9 91,478 30.0 55,171 18.1 304,443
Creative arts 21,032 30.8 17,123 25.1 14,011 20.6 68,178
Agriculture, environmental and related studies 5,080 31.6 3,096 19.3 3,197 19.9 16,080
Architecture and building 7,334 32.3 6,545 28.9 4,192 18.5 22,676
Health 37,001 28.2 30,192 23.0 26,698 20.4 131,077
Education 31,427 30.9 19,603 19.3 21,545 21.2 101,816
Society and culture 1 79,134 35.5 52,617 23.6 34,088 15.3 222,925
Other 2 8,818 33.7 3,213 12.3 8,468 32.3 26178
Total 3 321,574 31.2 266,842 25.9 192,262 18.7 1,029,846



Footnotes:
1: The rankings are based on weighted scores for peer and recruiter review, the number of students and staff recruited from overseas, staff-to-student ratios and the number of citations of academic papers.
2: Rankings are based on several indicators of academic or research performance, including alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, highly cited researchers, articles published in Nature and Science, articles indexed in major citation indices, and the per capita academic performance of institutions.
3: Includes Economics/econometrics, law, and languages among others.
4: Includes Food, hospitality and personal services, mixed field programs and non-award courses.
5: The data takes into account the coding of Combined Courses to two fields of education. As a consequence, counting both fields of education for Combined Courses means that the total may be less than the sum of all broad fields of education. Source: Commonwealth Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Students 2007: Selected Higher Education Statistics..