Coronavirus: Four-year grind for university rebound

The nation’s most prestigious universities will take up to four years to regain their pre-COVID strength, sector analysts say.

Centre for the Study of Higher Education professorial fellow Frank Larkins.

The nation’s most prestigious universities will take up to four years to regain their pre-COVID strength amid warnings that the Group of Eight faces a much dimin­ished future in a post-pandemic world, sector analysts say.

Australia’s oldest university, the University of Sydney, has declared it can keep its place in the top 100 higher education institutions after retiring Australian Catholic University vice-chancellor Greg Craven predicted Australia would soon fall off the global league tables.

While higher education experts believe Australian universities will stay in the top 100 and perform well relative to countries ravaged by COVID-19, they say the universities’ absolute performance is on a “downward trend” and a full rebound for the sector might take until 2025.

Centre for the Study of Higher Education professorial fellow Frank Larkins told The Australian on Monday that universities’ recovery from the loss of $7bn in foreign student fees and the COVID-19 recession will begin in 2022, but it will take longer to reach pre-COVID levels.

“The next year for universities will still be very challenging. There’s no doubt 2021 will be worse for the sector than 2020 but there will be a rebound,” he said.

“Strong domestic student demand and universities preparing for what’s coming will see the beginning of that rebound in 2022-23. Historically, it has taken three to five years to recover from these sorts of shocks, so by 2025 we will see a fuller ­revival.

“It will come down to management. These next few years ­really will set the good university administrations apart from the others.”

In his final interview before he leaves ACU after 13 years, Professor Craven told The Australian this week he believed Australia’s time on the top 100 world university rankings was finished and elite sandstone budgets would never be as large as they were before the pandemic.

Professor Larkins and ANU higher education policy professor Andrew Norton said on Monday Australian universities would remain on the top 100 lists because of their relatively strong performance to other universities in countries hit worse by coronavirus.

Six Australian universities ranked among the world’s top 100 higher education institutions in last year’s Times Higher Education Supplement world university rankings: the University of Melbourne, the Australian Nat­ional University, the University of Sydney, the University of Queensland, the University of NSW and Monash University.

Professor Norton said while Australian universities would still compete relatively well internationally next year, the loss of $7bn in foreign student fees meant their absolute performance would continue on a downwards trend for some time.

“There are a lot of existing strengths in the Australian higher education sector despite what’s happened in the pandemic. And world rankings focus on relative performance to others, rather than absolute performance,” the ANU analyst said. “Absolute performance is still on a downward trend. There will absolutely be a rebound from where we are. Whether we get back to where we were pre-pandemic will depend on the international student market after the virus. And it will depend on the Chinese market, where there are other factors.”

More than 12,000 jobs have been lost at Australian universities, according to figures from the National Tertiary Education Union, and more are expected to be lost in the coming year.

Professor Larkins and Melbourne University colleague Ian Marshman found in a report last year that 6100 full-time research jobs were at risk from a COVID recession that could cost universities $6.8bn-$7.6bn from their research funds. The Group of Eight warned in The Australian last August that the country faced a research “brain drain.”

Professor Craven said this week Australia’s elite universities have to accept they were no longer the academic equivalent to “Manchester United” and could no longer sit atop global rankings.

A spokeswoman for the University of Sydney said on Monday that they were optimistic about remaining one of the world’s top higher education institutions, but were hoping to get more government support for research in the coming year.

“Our outstanding research, academic standards and graduate outcomes will ensure we continue to be positioned among the world’s best universities,” she said.

“While COVID has had an impact on our sector, we’re optimistic about the future overall. We have confidence in our higher education institutions and Australia’s capacity to continue to provide high quality education and training, and transformational research.

“Of course, ongoing and sustainable funding is a critical issue for our sector and while we appreciate the additional support the Federal Government gave to research in 2020 we look forward to working on the issue with Minister Tudge this year.