The present paper reviews some of the major governmental policy directions that are shaping Australian universities in terms of funding, teaching and learning, research and community engagement, and international development, and draws out the implications of these for social work education and its relationship to the social work profession and the wider human services field. The paper is designed to provide an Australian context for the discussion of higher education policy. However, it recognizes that, given the pace of change in Australian government policy in higher education, such analyses are merely a snapshot at a point in time and that social work educators need to be constantly monitoring the higher education policy environment.