Australian higher education has undergone radical change aimed transforming universities into commercial enterprises less dependent on public funding. Despite some significant successes, including dramatic increases in the numbers of domestic and international students, decreased Commonwealth subsidies, and more private sector finance, there are ominous indications that institutional failure is endemic, especially financial accountability. Drawing on various theories of institutional failure, this paper attempts to examine the causes of the current crisis. A four-fold taxonomy of Australian university failure is developed that identifies governance. failure, accountability failure, quality failure, and information failure as the primary sources of tertiary education institutional breakdown.