Victorian universities are in good shape, managing debt, diversifying revenue and reducing dependence on federal funding. “The proportion of revenues from government grants in the Victorian university sector is lower than the five-year national average, the Victorian Auditor- General Office reports.

Excepting Victoria U and Federation U, which VAGO warns “may face financial sustainability issues in the longer term,” (CMM yesterday).

Part of their problems are employee costs, way above the national average of employee benefits expenditure to total revenues, (54 per cent).

And way higher than particularly productive University of Melbourne and Monash University.

The staff costs as a per centage of revenue for all Victorian Universities are:

UniMelb 48, Monash U 49, Swinburne U 55, Deakin U 55, La Trobe U 55, RMIT 56, Fed U 60, Victoria U 64.

In the statement of the bleeding obvious for the week VAGO suggests, Federation U and Vic U “need to improve the efficiency of their staffing structure.”