The finances have been not-great for years

At Southern Cross U management predicts it will be short $58m this year and next. To cover the loss the university proposes dropping the enterprise agreement pay rise of 1.4 per cent, due on July 1, as well as the same amount, plus $500, next year.

It also wants staff to accept the new academic model the university wants to introduce.

Vice Chancellor Adam Shoemaker was down to meet the campus unions yesterday but has already said the proposal will go to the all-staff vote required to vary the enterprise agreement.

“We must also acknowledge that our strategic challenges are not just the product of COVID-19.  The virus has poured accelerant on a fire which has been burning at Southern Cross U for over a decade,” he tells staff.

Back in 2014 the NSW Auditor General warned the university’s operating margin was negative two-years in a row, (CMM June 4 2014) and things are not great now.

Policy mavens Frank Larkins and Ian Marshman estimate SCU is one of the seven in–strife universities which do not have reserves to cover predicted shortfalls in overseas student revenues and which will have to, “undertake drastic cost-savings measures and develop new revenue raising initiatives,” (CMM May 31).