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Summer Johnstone is beginning university this year, but she won’t enter her profession until she’s at least 27.
“I wanted to be certain on what I was going to do … I just wanted something to be a passion,” she said.
“A lot of my friends rushed into courses and midway through the year, they changed to two different courses.”
Summer Johnstone is beginning a dual bachelor’s degree of architecture and construction management in 2026.Credit: Summer Johnstone
Beginning her dual bachelor’s degree in architecture and construction management at Griffith University, Johnstone is joining more than 17,500 adult-entry students across the state in 2026 – a number that’s steadily increasing each year.
The Queensland Tertiary Admissions Centre released its second and largest university course offer round on Thursday, sending good news to almost 14,000 students across the state.
Since Queensland university offers began rolling out in late 2025, about 48,700 applicants have been accepted into their courses, and about 36 per cent of them are mature-age students.
Adult students are those who are not coming directly from school, and they’re typically 21 or older.
However, the gap after high school may be smaller for students who did not receive an ATAR, like 19-year-old Johnstone.
Jeremy Hauter, 21, is beginning a bachelor of pharmacy with honours in 2026.Credit: Jeremy Hauter
Other adult applicants have left past careers behind, like 21-year-old Jeremy Hauter, who left his job as a security technician to pursue a bachelor of pharmacy.
“The reason I chose my original career option as a tradesman was when I was in high school, I was told I wasn’t good enough to go into university and study medical science,” Hauter said.
“March to April 2024 is when I realised that this career [in security] was not for me.”
Hauter said the environment at his former workplace, where he had been undertaking an apprenticeship, had been a major part of his decision.
“I worked every weekend, I was travelling constantly, I wasn’t able to go see my family, and I was ridiculed constantly by my employers,” he said.
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“I just had this looming anxiety about my career.”
The Redcliffe local, who begins his new path at Griffith University this year, is one of 6261 adult students pursuing a health-related degree – the most common area of study for students across all age brackets.
Year-on-year the number of adult-entry students at Queensland universities has sat at between 35 and 38 per cent, with the actual number steadily increasing.
From the start of 2024 to 2026, the number of overall applications jumped by about 12 per cent, translating to 2500 more adult applications this year than three years ago.
In 2026, the largest number of offers from any single institution came from the University of Queensland, particularly its bachelor of engineering with honours.
But for adult students alone, the most commonly offered course was the Queensland University of Technology’s bachelor of business, followed by a bachelor of arts at UQ, and the online tertiary prep pathway offered at the University of the Sunshine Coast.
After Thursday’s major round of offers, additional places for courses starting in the first half of the year were expected to be made until late February.
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