THE government should consider placing caps on the number of students enrolling in all health-related disciplines, including nursing, as a way to contain budget blowouts and help resolve an escalating crisis in finding clinical placements for the 170,000 students each year, says the head of Australia’s oldest university. “I’ve always said if the government is looking for savings in the higher education system then withdrawing from the health disciplines from the demand-driven system makes a lot of sense,” said Michael Spence, vice-chancellor of the University of Sydney. Under current arrangements, universities are free to enrol as many students as they wish, with the exception of medicine which has centrally imposed caps. But Dr Spence said the cost of delivering health-related degrees, and a massive hike in enrolments in these subjects in recent years, was putting unprecedented pressure on both university and health system budgets.