This week’s round-up is mostly about the arts. As the new university year nears a triad of factors are behind a self-perpetuating cycle of declining creative arts enrolments. Trump is closing the Kennedy Centre for renovations, saying it is because the performing arts centre is “tired, broken, and dilapidated.” Trump didn’t mention all the acts that have cancelled their performances, but surely that has had an impact. And speaking of renovations, three major Australian arts venues are set to open this year.
Also: Spotify distributed $11 billion in royalties and still thinks it is the saviour of music while Sony Music entered an investment partnership to buy up more music catalogues. And Anthropic have released a new constitution for its AI model Claude – just in the nick of time given their stoush with the Pentagon.
What’s been going on?
Here's WTF happened this week:
Creative arts just 5.6 per cent of university offers
2026 study offer figures show creative arts degrees were the sixth lowest area of study offered which is fed by a polycrisis triad of declining secondary schools arts subjects enrolments, fewer students enrolling in high-cost university creative arts and arts and humanities degrees and the closure or reduction of creative arts by universities as a result. Urgent policy change is needed to redress the impact.
The Australasian Conference of Tertiary Admissions Centres (ACTAC) has released 2026 study offer figures showing that health is the most popular area of study for new undergraduates with 22.2 per cent of offers. Creative arts degrees were the sixth lowest on the list of 12 study areas. They made up 5.6 per cent of offers. Society and culture – which includes degrees like law, arts and humanities and psychology – represented 21.8 per cent of offers.
