As the always-expert Andrew Norton tweeted yesterday

Eschewing unseemly haste, the Department of Education has released its report on 2021 financials of the 39 public universities (Table A) and for the first time, the then three (private) Table B universities Bond U, Torrens U and Uni Divinity. (This inflates figures, for comparison, with previous years, although not by much.)

All up 39 of the total 42 universities reported a surplus, with a 14 per cent average margin – 30 had a larger net result than in the last pre-pandemic year, 2019.

The system surplus was $5.3bn, compared to $706m in 2020.

Improvements on 2020 were due to increased government funding, higher investment income and pandemic driven cost cutting, overall operating expenses decreased $1.1bn (or 3.1 per cent) 2019-21. Employee benefits were down 4.6 per cent, $489m for academics and were 5.7 per cent ($557m) lower for professional staff.

But it was more public money that made much of the difference – 23 universities reported a larger increase in Commonwealth funding than their decline in international student fees.

Among all the good news for managements (if not for people retrenched or not renewed) some of the biggest financial improvements include, Uni Sydney, revenue was up 33 per cent to $3.531bn, UNE (a 26 per cent, $90m revenue increase to $438m) and Uni Melbourne (17 per cent increase to $3.119m). Uni Sydney had a $1bn surplus, 20 per cent of the national total.

At the other end, CQU revenue was down 10 per cent or $45m and La Trobe U took a 6 per cent hit, down by $47m.