 Oliphant envisaged Canberra one day becoming a university town like Oxford or Cambridge . A threat to the future of the University arose in the wake of the 1949 election , when the Liberal Party of Australia led by Robert Menzies won . Many Liberals were opposed to the University , which they saw as an extravagance . Menzies defended it , but in 1954 he announced that it had entered a period of consolidation , with a funding ceiling , ending the possibility of successful competition with universities in Europe and North America . A further blow came in 1959 , when the Menzies government amalgamated it with the Canberra University College . Henceforth , it would no longer be a research university , but a regular one , with responsibility for teaching undergraduates . Nonetheless , parts of the university stayed committed to the old mission , and the ANU remained a university where research is central to its activities . Despite the setbacks , by 2014 the vision of Canberra as a university town would be well on its way to becoming a reality . 
