A university receives all the advantages that an ISP does when it joins a peering point - reduced costs, better/faster service - but it can get some benefits not experienced by ISPs.
As unis are reducing the amount of dial in access they provide, many of their staff and students dial in through commercial ISPs to access the universities resources (lecture notes, UNIX accounts, electronic databases, online learning materials etc). It is important that staff and students can access these resources quickly but sometimes, through no fault of the universities, this is not happening. While the universities have fast connections to their respective transit providers they can still fall victim to the Gold Coast's network topology.
As an example, Griffith Uni is connected to AARNet who get Internet access from Optus. As Optus aren't providing transit for any local ISPs on the Gold Coast (last time I checked) this means all traffic must go via Sydney. Bond Uni aren't in as bad a position with their access coming from On The Net/Telstra but for ISPs buying transit from connect.com.au it still means a trip to Sydney.
If universities joined the peering point then they would be close (network wise) to all ISPs. It may even be something they can use to attract students interested in IT/Computing degrees - showing the prospective students that the uni understands and considers important the workings of the Internet and the students use of it.
PARNet (the Perth Academic Regional Network - the West Australian equivalent of QUESTNet) peer at WAIX. Last month they received (if it was billed at Telstra's rate of $0.19/Mb) over $40 000 worth of traffic.