COVID-19 costs University of Melbourne $500m this year, Monash University prepares for ‘worse’ semester two

Uni of Melbourne takes $500m revenue hit, while Monash says more students will stay away in semester two.

The University of Melbourne will suffer a $500 million revenue loss this year due to the coronavirus.

The University of Melbourne will take a $500 million revenue hit this year from the coronavirus and vice-chancellor Duncan Maskell and his executive team will take a 20 per cent pay cut.

In a pre-Easter message to staff Professor Maskell said the university faced a significant financial challenge and had already implemented measure to address it.

“This includes freezing non-essential staff appointments, reducing operating expenditure and putting capital projects on hold where possible, and we continue to examine other cost-saving measures,” he said.

“In recognition of the extent of this challenge, members of university executive and I have agreed to take a 20 per cent reduction in salary for the next six months, which will be reviewed in the light of circumstances at that point in time.”

University of Melbourne vice-chancellor Duncan Maskell.

Monash University vice-chancellor Margaret Gardner also told staff on Thursday that she and her senior team would take a 20 per cent reduction in pay, with half the amount being put into a fund for students suffering hardship.

Professor Gardner did not say how much Monash was expected to be under budget this year, but warned that job cuts might be necessary.

She said the goal was to avoid redundancies but “it is dependent on the extent of the downturn (in student numbers) in second semester”.

“We do not yet have a clear picture of what will happen in second semester, but we expect it to be worse than this one in terms of a decline in student numbers, and all of this will flow into first semester next year,” she said.

She added that if “changes to staff employment arrangements” were needed then “neither I nor the senior executive will be exempt”.

She also said the university had deferred about $100 million of capital expenditure and had borrowed about the same amount to help it through.

“We’ve committed our cash reserves and we have tightened all non salary expenditure,” Professor Gardner said.

“We’ve also limited hiring. We’re asking staff to work in areas where we need more people if their area has less work.

Monash University vice-chancellor Margaret Gardner.

“And we’re also attempting to keep his many sessionals and casuals employed as we can — recognising that a lot of normal work has gone for the moment and we have less students enrolled.”

Other Group of Eight institutions have also revealed massive drops in revenue this year from the coronavirus.

Earlier this week UNSW said it faced a $600 million budget shortfall and the University of Sydney estimated it would miss budget projections by $470 million.

The University of Queensland said that, at best, it would lose $240 million in revenue this year but the loss could be as much as double that figure depending on how long the crisis went on and its impact on student numbers.