Aussie universities are aggressively promoting double degrees as a major employment edge – but some students claim there’s “no advantage” to the massive investment.
Western Sydney social worker Gabrielle Garofano studied a Bachelor of Social Work and Criminal Justice at Western Sydney University, but said the second qualification had not made a significant difference to her career prospects.
It took the 25-year-old five years to complete her double degree at a cost of around $58,000, but said so far, it hadn’t given her much of a leg up.
“For my line of work, I don’t believe the double degree has provided significant additional benefits,” Ms Garofano told news.com.au.
“Social work positions are generally paid at the same rate regardless of whether an individual holds extra qualifications, so there is no direct financial advantage to having an additional degree.”
Ms Garofano said the double degree may have helped her stand out during the recruitment process, but had not translated into a meaningful benefit once she entered the workforce.
She said she believed students should think carefully about doing a double degree, adding “overall, I do not see the benefit of it and don’t think it has been worth the extra cost of the degree”.
University of Technology Sydney student Tejasvin “TJ” Jethi, 21, who is completing a double degree in mechanical engineering honours and applied physics, also told news.com.au he had reservations about double degrees.
“The biggest cost isn’t necessarily the extra tuition fees — it’s the opportunity cost of spending additional years at university instead of earning an income, gaining industry experience, or pursuing other opportunities,” Mr Jethi said.
“Because of that, I don’t think a double degree should be viewed as the default option.”
Taking on a double degree comes with an immediate financial penalty for students.
Because most double degrees demand an extra year of full-time study, they directly delay a young Australian’s entry into the workforce while simultaneously bloating their indexed federal debt.
In high-contribution disciplines like law, an additional single year of study can slap more than $10,000 in student contributions onto a graduate’s ledger before indexation even takes effect.
Universities maintain that consumer demand for dual programs remains robust, because teenagers want broader study options and a wider mix of subjects.
But while universities frequently cite higher hiring rates and premium graduate salaries for dual qualifications, it tuns out the published national figures do not actually distinguish between single and double degree graduates.
That leaves school leavers weighing an extra year of study and a significantly larger HELP debt against marketing claims made almost entirely by the universities themselves.
The federal data discrepancy was confirmed by the Social Research Centre, which administers the federal Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching (QILT) surveys.
“We do not typically differentiate between single and double degrees in the data made available on the website … we do not report on QILT data based on the length of individual programs, instead the data is typically disaggregated into course level and study area,” the Social Research Centre said.
Despite this lack of public transparency, Monash University confirmed that about 42 per cent of its undergraduates were currently completing double degrees.
The institution claimed its dual qualification graduates recorded an 82.3 per cent full-time employment rate in the 2024 Graduate Outcomes Survey, alleging that starting salaries were about $3000 a year higher on average.
University of Queensland Deputy Vice-Chancellor Kris Ryan also defended double degrees, claiming that certain combinations could lift full-time employment prospects by as much as 40 per cent.
Mr Ryan also argued that dual degrees took four years to complete, compared with six to eight years if a student undertook two separate single degrees back-to-back.
Similarly, University of Sydney Deputy Vice-Chancellor Joanne Wright argued that employers highly valued the broader cross-disciplinary skills double degree students developed.
However, corporate recruiters and job placement specialists gave a far more mixed assessment, arguing that a double degree does not usually translate to a premium salary package.
RFI Technology Solutions human resources manager Tanya Gould said the decision to collect degrees rarely moves the needle for hiring managers during competitive intakes.
Ms Gould said that for the vast majority of graduate roles, there was no meaningful career leverage in holding two distinct qualifications.
“For the majority of degrees, a single degree is just as good as a double degree,” Ms Gould said, adding that there was zero salary premium offered for graduates with two degrees during standard corporate intake programs.
Career Success Australia program director Naren Chellappah agreed that a double degree on a CV meant very little on its own.
“Graduates who go out of their comfort zone to complete passion projects, volunteer, do study abroad, complete internships and undertake micro credentials are in the best position to secure graduate jobs,” Mr Chellappah said.
Meanwhile, even some large-scale public sector employers back up the double degree conundrum, with the NSW Public Sector Graduate Program’s 2026 intake including 153 graduates – with just 27 per cent holding double degrees.
However, the state government confirmed that its competitive recruitment process was strictly based on a candidate’s demonstrated capability rather than their raw qualification count.
But of course for some, a double degree is a no-brainer.
Recent Macquarie University graduate Lachlan Barron, 23, who completed a Bachelor of Medical Sciences and Bachelor of Cognitive and Brain Sciences, majoring in neuroscience, said the extra year had definitely been worthwhile.
“I think it was worth it. It gave me the opportunity for more internships and more diverse subjects, rather than a few electives or completing a minor,” Mr Barron said.
“In my case I completed two degrees that complemented each other which deepened knowledge and cemented skills, but I also see the appeal of completing two completely different degrees, especially as a recent graduate who still isn’t 100 per cent certain of their career plan.”
However, until federal regulators force national outcomes data to be publicly broken out between single and double degree cohorts, the financial return on that extra year of study and compounding debt remains impossible for Australian students to test.
Read related topics:Employment