The traditional university campus is dead, and learning will never return to pre-pandemic models, according to a consultancy firm.

EY believes Australia’s student numbers may never return to the 2019 peak, as learning goes online and on demand.

Richard Cawood, EY’s Director of Strategy and Transformation told Perth LIVE’s Oliver Peterson, COVID-19 accelerated a trend that had already begun.

“The university campus is dead. Basically what we see is that change is coming, as a result of COVID, and also because of technology,” he said.

“The example is peak oil, and how oil is being replaced by renewable energy – we see exactly the same thing happening with universities.

“We’ve reached the upper limits, or the peak of international students, we’ve reached peak degrees, peak rankings, peak campus, and what comes next is going to be fundamentally different to the traditional university that we have today.”

The influence of technology also means students may no longer necessarily need to choose between just local institutions.

“We did some market research that showed that Australians would consider overseas providers as much as they would consider local universities in the future,” he said.

“We say that be 2030, so essentially 10 years from now, the way that students learn, and the way they access that learning is going to be as easy and as cheap as listening to music.”

Press PLAY to hear the full interview with Oliver Peterson