The University of Wollongong will establish a campus at Liverpool in Sydney's south-west, one of the fastest growing and youngest regions in New South Wales.

It will be the 11th campus for the University of Wollongong and will open on a small scale next year, before moving into larger premises in the new Civic Plaza development in 2019.

It is expected the South Western Sydney campus will be able to accommodate more than 7,000 students by 2030.

Students will be able to undertake degrees from a number of faculties including law, humanities, engineering, science and medicine as well as entry and vocational training programs.

The University of Wollongong will also establish a nurse training centre, the Western Sydney Nursing Education and Research Centre, in Liverpool by 2019.

Apart from being one of the fastest growing regions of the state, it has more than 45 per cent of its population under the age of 30.

The University's vice-chancellor, Professor Paul Wellings, said the institution had identified Sydney's south and south-west as areas of significant growth.

"We think that that population of students is going to increase fairly dramatically over the next few years, so it's really that demographic opportunity that comes about," Professor Wellings said.

The University of Wollongong currently has two international campuses in Hong Kong at Dubai; four in regional New South Wales and two others in the greater Sydney area.

Nurse training facility expected to take 700 students

The centrepiece of the announcement is the establishment of a nursing training facility which is expected to have an intake of 700 nursing students when it opens in 2019.

Professor Wellings defended the need for the new nursing school in Wollongong, despite Western Sydney University already offering nursing at three campuses in Sydney's west.

The University of Sydney has also expanded its nursing course to operate at Westmead.

"We know that's a growth industry and an area where citizens need to be trained," Professor Wellings said.

He also said Sydney's hospitals would be able to cope with the increasing number of student nurses who needed to carry out clinical placements in hospitals as part of their degree.

"Placements will grow as the hospital system grows," he said.

"There will have to be investment in more facilities and more staff.

"So we will see a demand for placements increase in the future and we will the capacity of the system to cope with that."

The vice-chancellor acknowledged there would now be more competition in the western suburbs in the tertiary sector.

"Inevitably, as the campuses open, there will be a scramble and a chance for some stratification in the system to take place," Professor Wellings said.

"As the population grows I suspect that we will be saying why don't we have even more campuses here in the broader west of Sydney."

Western Sydney Uni also stakes its claim to the booming region

Western Sydney University has responded to the push by Wollongong into the region by underlining its own plans for Liverpool.

The vice-chancellor of Western Sydney University, Professor Barney Glover, said the institution already had a campus at Milperra, just 10 minutes outside of Liverpool, and last year announced plans of its own for a new Liverpool campus.

Professor Glover said the university had taken out a full-page advertisement in a Sydney newspaper to underline its commitment to Liverpool.

"Today seemed an opportune moment just to remind people that there is already a high-quality university providing higher education opportunities in Liverpool, " he said.