Shock at SAE and ACAP University Colleges Byron Bay campus closure

STUDENTS and staff are reeling after the announcement that the SAE Byron Bay and ACAP University Colleges campus will close in 2028.

The news is another blow to the region’s creative arts community, for which the Northern Rivers is renowned. It follows Southern Cross University’s decision last year to axe its undergraduate creative arts degrees due to declining enrolments.

Global education provider Navitas, which owns both institutions, has stopped accepting new enrolments at the Byron Bay campus as it begins a gradual wind-down, with students in the trimester two 2025 intake in May the final cohort to study at the campus.

The phased closure is intended to ensure minimal disruption, allowing all current students at ACAP and SAE University Colleges to complete their studies.

Currently, around 180 students are enrolled at the Byron Bay campus, which employs 40 staff members.

Established in 2004, the campus has been a regional hub for higher education in the creative arts, media and psychology sectors and is the only institution of its kind in the Northern Rivers.

SAE University College executive general manager Matthew Evans said the education landscape had shifted, and the expiry of the campus lease in 2028 marked a natural point for closure.

“We’re seeing changing decisions from students who are preferring to study in metropolitan areas,” he said. “We are then left with a pretty small catchment area for domestic recruitment and it’s a region that simply doesn’t have the population density to support the sustainability of a campus.”

Evans said that there were plans to offer a scholarship for members of the Byron Bay community to study at other ACAP and SAE campuses.

National Tertiary Education Union representative Serena O’Meley said the union was deeply concerned about the closure’s impact on local access to tertiary education, particularly in fields such as film, music, media, animation, graphic design and games at SAE, and psychology and counselling at ACAP.

“Members believe that the 2022 Northern Rivers floods have had quite a large impact,” she said. “Students have lost their homes and been quite traumatised by the floods. They are also concerned that they don’t see anything comparable available to students in the region and fear it will further disenfranchise young people.

“There will be dozens and dozens of people losing their jobs and that’s money out of the Byron Bay economy and their opportunity to get similar jobs in the area is limited.”

One staff member, who asked not to be named, said Byron Bay students had won awards in four categories at last year’s international SAE Awards.

“That’s 4 out of 5 awards won by Australian campuses,” they said. “The quality of work and the results students achieve on this campus is among the highest in the country, possibly due to the fact we do things a little differently here. It’s unfortunate that this high standard of work goes unrecognised by a multinational corporate entity.”