TEQSA matters to the future of private higher education because it is the only thing that makes a private provider's degree worth the same as a university's. Registration on the National Register is what lets a fifty-student institute award an AQF qualification with national standing, enrol international students through CRICOS, seek FEE-HELP approval for its domestic students, and grow into new fields and higher levels. Take the regulator away and the private sector's product loses the one property that gives it value: that someone independent has checked it.
This article makes the case for regulation from the provider's side, covering credibility, market access and growth, for anyone who has searched for TEQSA private higher education future and found mostly complaints about compliance. It draws on fifteen years of TEQSA registration work, which has left me a stronger believer in the regulator than my clients expect.
Why is TEQSA the source of a private provider's credibility?
Under the TEQSA Act 2011 no entity may offer or confer an Australian higher education award unless it is registered, and registration requires the provider to meet the Threshold Standards and its decision-makers to be fit and proper persons. That is a high bar, and it is the same bar for every provider in every category. The credibility of a private provider's degree rests entirely on the fact that it cleared it.
Employers, universities admitting graduates to further study, professional bodies and overseas credential assessors do not evaluate a small provider's course themselves. They check the National Register. I have watched providers spend heavily on branding to close the reputational gap with universities, and the register does more for them than any campaign, because it is the one claim about quality a sceptical reader accepts without evidence of their own.
How does TEQSA govern access to international students and FEE-HELP?
The two revenue streams that sustain most private providers both run through registration. CRICOS registration under the ESOS Act is available only to a registered higher education provider, and TEQSA's annual report for 2024–25 records that about 95 per cent of registered providers hold it. FEE-HELP approval under the Higher Education Support Act likewise presupposes TEQSA registration, and it is what lets a private provider offer domestic students the same deferred-payment terms a university does.
Both streams are politically exposed. International student policy has tightened, and public confidence in the sector's ability to teach the students it enrols determines how much of that market private providers are allowed to keep. Here TEQSA is the private sector's best advocate: every provider it registers and every course it accredits is a public assurance that the sector can be trusted with international students and Commonwealth loans. A provider that resents the scrutiny should consider what its CRICOS registration would be worth without it.
Why does growth depend on the regulator?
A private provider grows in three ways: new courses, new levels and new categories. Each is a TEQSA process. Course accreditation adds fields; accreditation at AQF level 9 or 10 adds postgraduate and research degrees; self-accrediting authority under Part B2 of the Threshold Standards lets a provider approve its own courses within an agreed scope; and a change of provider category under section 38 of the Act turns an Institute of Higher Education into a University College, and eventually into a university.
The pathway is demanding, and the fees are real, with self-accrediting authority at $51,800 and a change of category at the same figure. But it is a pathway, and it is the same one the newest universities in the country walked. Our article on why TEQSA registration is the key to growth sets out the stages; without a regulator willing to recognise each step, there would be no ladder to climb.
What would the private higher education future look like without TEQSA?
Australia has run that experiment in the vocational sector, and providers who lived through it do not want it repeated. A market in which registration is easy and quality is a matter of assertion fills quickly with operators who compete on price and volume, public confidence collapses, and government responds with blunt instruments that punish good and bad providers alike. The private sector's small share of students and its dependence on international enrolments make it especially vulnerable to that cycle.
The TEQSA private higher education future, if I can put it that way, is one in which the regulator's standards stay high enough that the sector's reputation is worth protecting, and predictable enough that a well-run provider can plan against them. Our piece on private higher education in Australia and TEQSA covers what that predictability requires of the provider in return.
What does the provider owe in return?
Honesty, mostly. TEQSA's shift from Confirmed Evidence Tables to self-assurance asks each provider to say what it does well and where it falls short, and it has coincided with a rise in generic applications drafted by generative AI that say nothing true about the provider. The regulator's response has been more scrutiny, not less. A sector that wants a regulator it can trust must give the regulator something it can trust in return. The balance of advantages and costs is examined in our article on the pros and cons of private higher education.
My view: the regulator is the private sector's guarantor
Owners tend to see TEQSA as the cost of entry. I see it as the thing they are selling. A private provider's degree is credible, fundable and marketable because an independent regulator said so, and every gain in the sector's standing over the last decade has come from the regulator holding the line. That is the TEQSA private higher education future I expect and the one I would argue for: a demanding regulator, a sector that meets the demand, and a public that believes both.
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Frequently asked questions
Can a private provider operate in Australia without TEQSA registration?
No. Under the TEQSA Act 2011 only a registered provider may offer or confer an Australian higher education award, and registration is also the precondition for CRICOS and FEE-HELP.
How does TEQSA help private providers compete with universities?
By applying the same Threshold Standards to every provider, so that a private provider's AQF qualification carries the same national standing as a university's and can be verified on the National Register.
What growth pathways does TEQSA regulate?
New course accreditation, accreditation at higher AQF levels, self-accrediting authority under Part B2 of the Threshold Standards, and change of provider category under section 38 of the TEQSA Act.
Is TEQSA regulation harder on private providers than on universities?
The standards are the same, but the fixed costs of governance and compliance weigh more on small providers. TEQSA offers fee discounts of up to 70 per cent for providers with fewer than 5,000 EFTSL to offset part of that.
Dr Brendan Moloney is CEO of Darlo Higher Education, Australia's largest specialist TEQSA consultancy. He holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne, is a Cambridge University Press author on governance in higher education, and has advised private providers on registration and course accreditation for more than fifteen years.