It could be worse at Uni Adelaide

Interim VC Mike Brooks tells staff things are better than expected, for now

What’s happened: Second semester enrolments are way higher than budgeted, so the university will “recoup” $40m this year and will not need to borrow $35m as anticipated.

Improved enrolments are mainly from off-shore students, which Professor Brooks attributes in-part to visa changes, which allow current holders studying on-line ex Australia to count such courses towards post-study work-rights.

There’s good news: Some of the hits staff voted to accept in the recently adopted Enterprise Agreement variation (CMM August 19) will not, or may not, happen; cancellation of annual leave loading is off and the 3.5 per cent salary cut won’t happen this year. Whether it is needed next will be decided in February

But (and it’s a big one): International commencements for semester two are down 26 per cent on 2019. If travel stays restricted international student revenue in 2021 will be down 23 per cent on this year.

Even so the bad news could be way-worse: Give the “reduced budget outlook for several years” the plan for a 200 FTE cut via staff turnover and “voluntary measures” remains. However, Professor Brooks repeats his commitment to no forced redundancies for the life of the EAV.