The HE unique student identifier is before parliament, in the snappily titled Education Legislation Amendment (2022 Measure Number One) Bill 2022

This requires students to provide their USI to their institution. This is to ensure providers can supply student data to the feds and calculate “students entitlements to Commonwealth assistance” as the explanatory memorandum puts it.

Problem is not everybody with a USI is providing it. “Higher education providers have experienced difficulties in collecting student identifier information from eligible persons,” the bill memorandum states.

Gosh, why could that be? Perhaps because of discrepancies in records. The USI Registry suggests when the names on student IDs differ from the USI, people have to make sure the former conforms to the latter (CMM October 15 2021).

Which students who like the name they go by may not be inclined change because they are told to.