Most uni bosses make more than $1 million. When this one got the job, he asked for a pay cut

The new head of Western Sydney University has revealed he asked for a pay cut when he took the job and believes that vice chancellors’ salaries, which exceed $1 million at over half of Australian universities, should be aligned with public servant wages.

Professor George Williams said the sector had “lost its way” and universities needed to change the conversation to focus on the people they serve to regain the public’s support.

Western Sydney University vice chancellor George Williams.Credit: Edwina Pickles

Australia’s public university vice chancellors are among the highest paid in the world, with analysis from this masthead revealing more than half receive pay packets over $1 million.

The National Tertiary Education Union has called for an overhaul of the salaries, saying they are wildly out of touch with community expectations.

But some in the sector people believe the high wages are warranted given vice chancellors are leading complex organisations, sometimes managing multi-billion dollar budgets.

Outlining his vision for Western Sydney University at an event at its Parramatta campus last week, Williams said his starting point when negotiating his wage was that he was leading a public sector organisation, not a business.

“I actually asked for a pay reduction. I was going low and [the chancellor] went high. We negotiated and came around in the middle in the end,” he said, noting he had taken a pay cut of “about 20 to 25 per cent” from his predecessor.

“I’m not crying poor here, I’m still paid very well,” he said.

“But it’s benchmarked to about where the lowest paid secretaries of a [federal] public sector department would be paid, and that’s where they should be benchmarked.”

Williams said he took the pay cut because he thought it was “fair and right” but also to send a signal as a leader.

A 20 to 25 per cent reduction on former Western Sydney University vice chancellor Barney Glover’s salary would mean a new annual wage of about $800,000 to $850,000.

The lowest paid federal secretaries are in the Department of Industry, Science and Resources and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, who earn $809,130 a year.

Education Minister Jason Clare said a new governance council currently being set up would examine how universities set remuneration policies for their senior staff.

“It is clear that we need to strengthen governance arrangements at our universities and that’s what we’re doing,” he said.

Williams, a constitutional law expert, said the sector was too inwardly focused and instead needed to reset the conversation around students, staff and the community.

“If you ask people in the community ‘tell me three things about universities that first come to mind’ … VC salaries come up, international students come up, and the universities crying poor and wanting more money,” he said at the forum.

“Unless we change that it’s no surprise we’re on the wrong end of government policy so often.”

Williams’ comments came as universities face the imminent prospect of caps on their international students numbers, with the federal government planning to use international students as a key mechanism to meet its goal of slashing migration.

Universities say they have become reliant on international student fees to prop up research and teaching after a reduction in federal funding from successive governments.

Oxford University higher education expert Professor Simon Marginson said some vice chancellor salaries were so far beyond everyone else’s in the institution that it appeared disproportionate, arguing they should not earn much more than the most well-paid professors.

“Australia seems pretty generous in international terms,” he said.

But Professor Emeritus Frank Larkins, a higher education researcher at Melbourne University, has said the high wages for vice chancellors were justified given they were presiding over complex organisations with large budgets.

The National Tertiary Education Union has proposed capping vice chancellor salaries at the same level as the premier of the state the university is located.

“We’d happily look at any proposal that reins in out-of-control and out-of-touch vice-chancellor salaries,” national president Dr Alison Barnes said.

“Enormous salaries are just another symptom of a broken governance model that needs urgent federal and state reform.”

The federal government’s expert governance council is being established to develop recommendations that will then be considered by state education ministers.

One of the council’s priority areas is to ensure universities have a rigorous process for developing remuneration policies for senior staff with consideration given to comparable public sector entities.

Monash University’s former vice chancellor, Margaret Gardner, was the highest university boss before her departure last year, earning nearly $1.6 million – about $190,000 more than she was paid in 2022, including entitlements.

University of Sydney vice chancellor Mark Scott received a pay rise of around $75,000 in 2023, taking home more than $1.17 million and making him the sixth-highest paid.

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