QILT: Australia's National Higher Education Quality Survey | studyabroad.wiki · Open Archive of Study Abroad Applications

QILT stands for the Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching. It is the Australian Government’s national collection of surveys that measures the quality of higher education from three perspectives: current students, recent graduates and the employers who hire them. The results are published on the QILT website and also appear in ComparED, the official tool for comparing universities and other higher education providers.

QILT is not a ranking system and it does not produce a single score for any institution. Instead, it publishes separate indicators across several surveys, each with its own methodology and respondent group. When you see a figure on QILT, the first question to ask is which survey it came from, which year it covers and which cohort answered.

What surveys make up QILT?

QILT currently draws on four main surveys. Each answers a different question about the quality of Australian higher education.

The Student Experience Survey, often shortened to SES, asks current students about their study experience. It covers areas such as teaching quality, learning resources, student support, skills development and peer engagement. Results are reported for undergraduate and postgraduate coursework students, and are broken down by whether the student is in their commencing year or a later year of study.

The Graduate Outcomes Survey, or GOS, contacts graduates around four to six months after they complete their course. It records whether they are in full-time or overall employment, their labour force participation, whether they are still studying full-time, and their median annual full-time salary. Results are reported separately for undergraduate, postgraduate coursework and postgraduate research graduates.

The Graduate Outcomes Survey – Longitudinal, or GOS-L, follows the same graduates three years after completion. It provides a longer-term view of employment and salary outcomes, which is useful because early graduate outcomes can change as people move further into their careers.

The Employer Satisfaction Survey, or ESS, asks the supervisors of recent graduates to rate how well those graduates perform at work. Employers assess graduates on a range of attributes, including technical skills, employability, collaboration, adaptability and foundation skills, and also give an overall satisfaction rating.

Each survey has its own data processing and procedures, which are documented on the QILT website. The published figures are estimates from sample surveys, not complete censuses of every student or graduate. That distinction matters when you compare numbers across years or institutions.

What do the QILT 2025 figures show?

The QILT 2025 release includes results from the 2025 Student Experience Survey, the 2025 Graduate Outcomes Survey and the 2025 Employer Satisfaction Survey. The figures below are national results across all provider types, so they describe the sector as a whole rather than any single institution.

For undergraduate students in 2025, the overall educational experience rating was 76.5 percent positive. Among commencing undergraduates the figure was 79.5 percent, while later-year undergraduates gave a rating of 72.6 percent. Learning resources received the highest focus area score among all undergraduates at 83.3 percent, followed by skills development at 81.4 percent and teaching quality and engagement at 80.5 percent. Student support and services was rated 71.3 percent, and peer engagement was the lowest focus area at 61.4 percent.

For postgraduate coursework students in 2025, the overall educational experience rating was 77.8 percent positive. Commencing students rated it at 78.8 percent and later-year students at 77.1 percent. Learning resources scored 85.5 percent, skills development 84.1 percent, teaching quality and engagement 83.7 percent, student support and services 77.7 percent, and peer engagement 62.0 percent.

The Graduate Outcomes Survey 2025 covers graduates from the 2025 cohort. Among undergraduates, 50.8 percent were in full-time employment and 70.7 percent were in overall employment. The labour force participation rate was 74.9 percent, 33.1 percent were in full-time study, and the median annual full-time salary was 70,000 Australian dollars.

For postgraduate coursework graduates in 2025, 52.2 percent were in full-time employment and 73.7 percent were in overall employment. Labour force participation was 87.1 percent, 16.5 percent were in full-time study, and the median annual full-time salary was 69,400 Australian dollars.

Postgraduate research graduates recorded the strongest employment outcomes. In 2025, 71.8 percent were in full-time employment and 84.0 percent were in overall employment. Labour force participation was 91.8 percent, 12.0 percent were in full-time study, and the median annual full-time salary was 100,000 Australian dollars.

The Employer Satisfaction Survey 2025 asked employers to rate graduates across all course levels. Technical skills received the highest satisfaction rating at 94.0 percent, followed by foundation skills at 93.3 percent and adaptive skills at 90.7 percent. Collaborative skills were rated 88.6 percent and employability 86.2 percent. Overall employer satisfaction was 84.2 percent. These figures are reported with 90 percent confidence intervals, which means the published point estimates come with a stated range of statistical uncertainty.

How do QILT results change over time?

Looking at the Graduate Outcomes Survey across three recent cohorts shows how early employment outcomes can shift. For undergraduates, full-time employment was 59.7 percent for the 2023 cohort, 52.3 percent for 2024 and 50.8 percent for 2025. Overall employment moved from 72.6 percent to 66.5 percent and then to 70.7 percent. Median full-time salary rose from 65,000 dollars for 2023 to 68,000 dollars for 2024 and 70,000 dollars for 2025.

Postgraduate coursework graduates followed a similar pattern. Full-time employment was 60.7 percent for 2023, 56.1 percent for 2024 and 52.2 percent for 2025. Median salary went from 65,000 dollars to 70,000 dollars and then to 69,400 dollars.

Postgraduate research graduates had the most stable outcomes. Full-time employment was 76.7 percent for 2023, 77.5 percent for 2024 and 71.8 percent for 2025. Median salary increased from 92,000 dollars to 95,600 dollars and then to 100,000 dollars.

These year-to-year movements should be read with care. Each cohort is a different group of people, and economic conditions, course mix and graduate intentions all affect the results. A single year’s figure is a snapshot, not a trend line.

How should you use QILT data when comparing institutions?

QILT data is most useful when you compare institutions within the same course level and the same survey year. Comparing an undergraduate figure from one university with a postgraduate figure from another would not tell you anything meaningful. The same applies to comparing results across different years, because the underlying cohorts are different.

ComparED is the official platform for this kind of comparison. It lets you look up specific institutions and courses, and it provides guidance on how to understand the data. When you use ComparED, pay attention to the number of respondents behind each figure. A result based on a small number of responses carries more statistical uncertainty than one based on a large sample, even if the published percentage looks precise.

QILT also publishes data processing and procedures documentation, which explains how responses are weighted, how missing data is handled and how the confidence intervals are calculated. Reading that documentation helps you avoid over-interpreting small differences between institutions.

What QILT does not measure

QILT measures student experience, graduate outcomes and employer satisfaction. It does not measure everything that might matter to a prospective student. It does not rank institutions by academic prestige, research output or teaching quality in a single composite score. It does not assess the quality of specific courses in terms of curriculum content or industry relevance beyond what students and employers report. It also does not cover every provider in the Australian higher education sector, so the absence of an institution from a particular QILT table does not necessarily mean that institution performs poorly.

QILT figures are self-reported by students and graduates, and employer satisfaction is reported by supervisors who may have limited exposure to a graduate’s full performance. These are valuable indicators, but they are survey measures rather than objective assessments of learning outcomes.

How can you verify QILT data yourself?

The QILT website publishes the full survey results, including the national tables and institution-level breakdowns. The ComparED website provides the interactive comparison tool. Both are official public sources, and the data processing and procedures page explains the methodology behind the figures.

When you look up a specific institution, check which survey and year the data comes from, and confirm the course level. If you are comparing two institutions, make sure you are looking at the same indicator, the same year and the same level of study. The QILT website also provides definitions for each indicator, so it is worth reading those before drawing conclusions from the numbers.

What is the relationship between QILT and other official registers?

QILT is a survey-based quality indicator system. It is separate from the official registration and regulatory systems that govern Australian education providers. CRICOS, the Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students, is the official register of institutions and courses that are approved to offer education to international students holding a student visa. If you need to confirm that a specific institution and course are registered, CRICOS is the authoritative source.

The Australian Government also maintains requirements around education agents under the ESOS framework. Providers must record their education agents in PRISMS and are responsible for managing those agents under the framework. PRISMS is not a public search tool for students to check agents, so it is not a substitute for verifying an agent’s credentials directly with the institution.

Study Australia advises prospective students to check an education institution’s official website for its list of partner agents, and to clarify the services and fees before signing anything. It also recommends comparing the service fees charged by different agents, and asking for a written agreement that sets out what you will pay and what those fees cover. Some agents are paid by education providers to recommend courses or institutions, and that cost is often already included in the tuition fees. Education agents can help you compare courses and manage applications, but they generally cannot provide regulated immigration legal advice.

Where can you find the latest QILT data?

The QILT website is the primary source for all survey results, methodology documents and national reports. ComparED is the official comparison tool for institutions and courses. Both are maintained by the Australian Government and are updated as new survey cycles are released.

For the figures cited in this article, the data comes from the QILT 2025 release, which includes the 2025 Student Experience Survey, the 2025 Graduate Outcomes Survey and the 2025 Employer Satisfaction Survey. The data was checked against the official QILT and ComparED publications on 2026-09-07. As with all government statistics, you should refer to the official QILT website for the most current versions of the data and any subsequent releases.