Australian universities spent $31m on advertisements in the first half of the year – a touch lower than the $1.7bn marketing budgets critics in the media claim.

New figures from advertising expenditure analysts Standard Media Index show total first-half advertising placements were up $4m on 2016, but down $3m on 2015. However SMI Managing Director Jane Schulze says universities spent up in the third quarter with outlays doubling in July and increasing by 44 per cent in August.

Overall spending in the VET sector plummeted over the last two years. This may reflect the cancellation of the rorted VET Fee Help scheme which saw private providers aggressively recruit students. Total VET media spends were $13m in the first half of the year, less than half the comparable 2015 figure.

Overall television advertising took the biggest hit. Universities’ spending halved this year on 2015 and dropped to a quarter for VET. Newspapers continued to command a dropping share of budgets while digital increased, up 18 per cent for universities.

All-of education spending was down 6.3 per cent, to $124.3m last year.

SMI Higher Education Product Category Ad Spend by Major Media: 1H Data
Category	Media Type	Jan – Jun 2015	Jan – Jun 2016	Jan – Jun 2017
Universities	Digital	11,404,306	12,030,665	13,810,493
	Outdoor	6,366,069	5,328,423	5,251,928
	Television	7,255,903	2,258,458	3,529,619
	Radio	2,389,801	2,074,558	3,366,891
	Newspapers	3,928,250	2,770,557	2,838,668
	Magazines	2,376,597	2,539,879	2,114,498
	Cinema	575,507	450,411	507,650
	Other	25,640	40,913	10,384
Universities Total		34,322,073	27,493,862	31,430,131
Vocational Training/Other Tertiary	Digital	6,692,654	7,327,373	5,645,518
	Television	8,795,877	2,490,021	2,136,893
	Outdoor	2,021,833	2,280,514	1,858,294
	Radio	4,201,478	2,328,603	1,809,822
	Newspapers	2,454,618	1,640,047	1,035,104
	Cinema	267,078	696,685	317,782
	Magazines	224,619	135,693	241,733
	Other	90,778	89,623	27,218
Vocational Training/Other Tertiary Total		24,748,936	16,988,558	13,072,364

source: Standard Media Index