Apparently there are across the Australian university sector, big staff cuts occurring, while at the same time the senior executives are pulling in the big dough; one vice chancellor is getting $ 1, 569,999 for doing what, exactly? Oh, managing the place. Yes, but as Macrobusiness.com.au has shown, the universities with their endless greed for international students have been one of the main forces producing an accommodation crisis, the worst in Australian history. There are tent cities, and homeless hungry people.
This is yet another argument for closing down the universities and completely reworking higher education to fit better with nation building rather than the values of the global supermarket.
"More than half of Victoria's vice-chancellors are earning annual salaries of more than $1m, new data reveals, as the federal government vows to crack down on excessive senior university pay packages.
The 2023 annual reports of Victorian universities, lodged on Wednesday, revealed six of Victoria's eight vice-chancellors had their salaries boosted last year, including separate rises of more than $50,000.
It came despite five universities posting annual deficits, citing ongoing financial recovery from the Covid pandemic and associated losses in international student numbers.
The highest executive salary increase was for Monash University, sitting at $1,560,000 to $1,569,999 in 2023, compared with $1,370,000 to $1,379,999 in 2022.
The university attributed the variation to the departure of the university's vice-chancellor during the reporting period and the remuneration of the vice-chancellor in the disclosure for the full year – including a payout of $620,991.
"The vice-chancellor is responsible for the academic and corporate leadership of Australia's largest university, which has an annual turnover of more than $5.6bn," a spokesperson said, adding they were effectively "both the chief academic and CEO of one of Australia's largest organisations".
Swinburne, Deakin, Federation University and RMIT also increased the pay packages of their vice-chancellors, despite all but Swinburne posting an annual deficit.
The minister for education, Jason Clare, said the Universities Accord which was handed down this year "made clear" that university governance needed to be strengthened and workplace relations compliance needed to be improved in the tertiary sector.
According to the National Tertiary Education Union, wage theft totals in the university sector are estimated at $170m, while two-thirds of the higher education workforce is employed insecurely.
"We are acting," Clare told Guardian Australia.
"Last week, education ministers progressed reforms to establish a new regulatory approach that strengthens university governance, including ensuring a more rigorous and transparent approach to how senior university staff are paid."
Federation University, which doubled its deficit in 2023 to -$81m, increased vice-chancellor Duncan Bentley's salary by more than $20,000 last year to between $890,000 and $899,999.
The university is facing three days of union protests at its campuses over management's plans to cut 200 ongoing positions – the equivalent of just over one in 10 staff members.
A spokesperson for the university said the cuts came in response to an ongoing decline in student numbers which had been exacerbated by "unexpected but necessary changes to international student visa arrangements".
Deakin University, which posted an operating deficit of -$54.8m, boosted its vice-chancellor's pay package from about $985,000 to between $1,000,000 to $1,099,999 in 2023.
A spokesperson said Prof Iain Martin's total remuneration included salary, contractual performance incentives, superannuation and accrued leave.
Swinburne's vice-chancellor received a pay increase of $10,000, taking the salary to between $1,040,000 to $1,049,999 amid an operating surplus of $24.3m, while RMIT's vice-chancellor, Prof Alec Cameron, had his salary jump by more than $50,000 to sit between $1,000,000 and $1,009,999.
That came despite RMIT reporting an operating deficit of -$11.6m in 2023, a narrowed margin from a -$27.7m deficit in 2022."