By Jordan Baker
The University of Sydney will earn almost as much in student revenue this year as it expected before the pandemic, after the domestic market stayed strong and fewer international students dropped out than it had feared.
The university will generate just $98 million less than it had originally forecast. The National Tertiary Education Union said the better-than-expected result means the university’s student revenue will now be more in 2020 than it was last year, and urged management to halt its voluntary redundancy program.
The University of Sydney will earn almost as much in student revenue this year as it expected before the pandemic.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
In an email to staff on Tuesday, vice-chancellor Michael Spence said the university had come closer to achieving its pre-pandemic budget forecast than it thought possible.
“In Semester 2 our domestic enrolments in both undergraduate and postgraduate courses remained relatively strong across all faculties and schools, resulting in a full-year outcome 2.4 per cent higher than our original budget,” he said.
“Our international student numbers for Semester 2 are far more positive than we had anticipated. At census our international enrolments were just 3.6 per cent lower than originally budgeted. There has been an overall reduction in student load for the year against our original budget by 4.3 per cent or the equivalent of 2480 full-time students.”
University of Sydney vice-chancellor Michael Spence.Credit: James Brickwood
This year, the university will now generate just $98 million less in student revenue than it had originally forecast.
“The impact of the continuing global pandemic on international student enrolments for 2021 remains difficult to predict, so while we welcome these results we must continue to prepare for a number of future possibilities,” Dr Spence said.
Earlier this year, the university predicted an overall shortfall of $470 million for 2020. A university spokeswoman said that was now $231.8 million.
National Tertiary Education Union branch president Kurt Iveson said last year’s student revenue was $1691 million, and the announcement put this year’s revenue at $1756 million, which was $98 million short of the $1854 million originally forecast.
“So, despite the pandemic, student revenue has increased by $65 million from 2019-2020,” he said.
“[This] is one of the reasons the NTEU Branch remains adamantly opposed to the voluntary redundancies they are still pushing ahead with. The pandemic is absolutely being used as cover to try to get rid of staff and restructure the workforce to further reduce the amount of secure, permanent jobs.”
A university spokeswoman said that other streams of revenue were down by about $31 million, and the university had to invest $66 million on COVID-related impacts, so the institution was in a worse position than its overall position in 2019 by $51 million.
"Comparing revenue against a previous year can be misleading as costs don't stay still," she said. "What is important is revenue against budget."
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