Education Minister Jason Clare has been in Cairns, talking up the importance of the new CQU campus the Commonwealth is funding there

“About 40 per cent of young people, 25 to 34, at the moment right across Australia have got a university degree. In regional Australia, it’s about half of that and part of that is because there’s not a university around the corner, there’s not a university in town. So, you’ve got to make the big decision to leave town and study elsewhere and a lot of people in Cairns do that already,” Mr Clare said.

Must have cheered up James Cook U. CQU has been in Cairns – for ten years but James Cook U has been there since the late ’80s.