The Australian National University plans to cut annual operating costs by a quarter of a billion dollars before 2026, as original plans to escape mounting deficits by raising student numbers has been stifled by caps on international enrolments.
The proposed restructure was announced by vice-chancellor Genevieve Bell in an all-staff address on Thursday morning and already puts 50 professional and academic positions, as well as one of its seven academic colleges, on the chopping block.
The ANU College of Health and Medicine will be disestablished, although the university executive say all 42 existing schools, centres, and institutes will be retained.
Five schools, two centres and one institute will be rehoused in total across three existing ANU colleges, with the two remaining colleges to also be renamed.
The ANU is projecting a 2024 deficit of $200 million, more than triple the expected deficit of $60 million. Over the past three years, ANU has accumulated $400 million worth of operating deficits.
ANU chief financial officer Michael Lonergan told ANU staff this morning that since 2021 expenses have grown by more than 10 per cent a year, whereas revenue has grown by only three per cent a year.
Mr Lonergan said the university’s budget for 2024-2028 had planned to grow revenue by five per cent a year “through increasing our student numbers, while simultaneously constraining expenditure growth to only two per cent per year”.
But given the introduction of a cap on international student numbers by the Commonwealth government, the ANU’s plan to “get out of our operating deficits by growing student numbers is no longer an option”.
“So to be clear, we cannot borrow. So this means we must work on the other side of the equation and reduce our expenses,” Mr Lonergan said.
The number of new international student commencements at ANU in 2025 will reportedly fall by 14.5 per cent compared to 2023 due to the government mandated cap.
NTEU ACT Division secretary Dr Lachlan Clohesy said “ANU’s financial situation has not been helped by the uncertainty around international student caps”.
He reiterated the unions call on Education minister Jason Clare “to implement a transition plan to make up funding shortfalls due to federal government policy changes”.
The ANU’s revenue from enrolments had already been restricted heading into the COVID-19 pandemic due to a reform aimed at improving the university’s research and teaching quality.
In 2018, former vice-chancellor Brian Schmidt capped the total number of undergraduate and postgraduate students.
To reduce annual operating costs by $250 million by January 2026, the university plans to cut spending on salary by $100 million and non-salary spending by $150 million. The latter is being considered by an expenditure taskforce led by chief operating officer Jonathan Churchill.
The proposed restructure, dubbed Renew ANU, will see at least 12 academic role and 38 non-academic roles cut, while six roles will also be “realigned”. Restructuring of finance, human resources, and IT staff began earlier this year.
The College of Computing, Engineering, and Cybernetics, which was just renamed at the end of 2022 when it was under the leadership of Ms Bell, will be reorganised into the College of Systems and Society.
Meanwhile, medicine will be added to the college of science and the college of law will add governance and policy to its remit.
Dr Clohesy argued that there is an ongoing perception of “arbitrary decision making by the vice-chancellor” that goes beyond the disestablishment of the College of Health and Medicine.
“Previous decisions this year including closing campus childcare centres, setting the police on student protestors, imposing the universally unpopular Recruitment Approval Committee, and more than doubling staff and student parking fees,” Dr Clohesy said.
“Communication and consultation has been poor throughout. Staff are sick of these pronouncements from the Chancelry tower, with little to no consultation, which have a huge effect on people’s lives.”
Do you know more? Contact James Riley via Email.