Regional universities in Queensland are outperforming their metropolitan counterparts in graduate salary and employment opportunities, a national university guide has found.
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The Good Universities Guide 2017, released Monday morning, gives students the chance to compare undergraduate degrees and institutions.
The guide criteria is broken down into quality of educational experience, overall employment rates of graduates and the median salary of graduates from different universities across Australia.
All data from the guide has been sourced from the Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching (QILT).based on results from Graduate Careers Australia's biannual survey.
In Queensland, the guide found CQ University Australia, based in Rockhampton, and University of Southern Queensland, based in Toowoomba, sat in the top 20 per cent of all universities in terms of overall graduate salary, both at $60,000, $3000 more than the next highest salary at $57,000 from University of Queensland.
James Cook University had the highest median graduate salary for dentistry nationally at $92,000.
University of Southern Queensland also took top spot for overall graduate employment rates at 84 per cent, followed closely by CQUniversity Australia at 81 per cent.
The lowest rating Queensland university for graduate employment was University of Sunshine Coast at 64 per cent.
The Gold Coast's Bond University ranked the highest in Queensland in terms of educational experience, with 90 per cent of students satisfied with the overall quality of their time at the university.
The University of the Sunshine Coast followed up closely behind, with 88 per cent, followed by Griffith University at 85 per cent.
Good Education Group chief executive officer Chris Lester said regional universities often attracted mature age students, which he said could explain why salary and employment were higher in regional institutions.
"A lot of school leavers want to move to metropolitan areas and end up going to university there," he said.
"A lot of the people at the regional universities are mature age students who are retraining or reskilling, they are often people looking to change jobs.
"When they have been working already or have been working for a while, they find it easier to get a job and often a higher paying job."
