By Luke Voogt
Deakin University has warned of “unavoidable” staff cuts as it faces losing up to $300 million in income by 2021 amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“We anticipate that our income this year will be between $80-$110 million less than 2019,” Deakin Vice Chancellor Iain Martin said in an email to staff.
“By the end of 2021 this reduction will grow to $250-$300 million – a fall of 18-22 per cent [of $1.35 billion].”
Professor Martin warned Deakin University faced “extremely difficult decisions”, with revenue expected to take “three to five years” to recover to 2019 levels.
“We therefore have to plan for a medium-term reduction in the size of our university,” he said.
“Although we will be doing so with a heavy heart, it will be impossible to avoid redundancies given that employment costs are more than half of our total expenditure.”
Professor Martin said plummeting international student numbers would hit the university’s finances hard with travel bans likely to continue for much of 2020, if not into 2021.
“We are not expecting to see any new onshore international students this year and [will] have substantially reduced international student numbers in 2021.”
Before the pandemic Deakin University had 16,616 international students out of 64,036 in total.
The university will introduce online courses for international students in their home countries so they can transfer to Australia when the restrictions lift, according to Professor Martin.
“These initiatives, and others, will help, but will not replace the reductions in international student numbers,” he said.
Earlier this month Professor Martin announced $25 million in hardship assistance for international students and that Deakin had approved 1200 applications for assistance from Australian students.
He said he was “profoundly disappointed” at the Commonwealth Government “casting international students adrift”.
Professor Martin described Deakin’s increased assistance as a “moral duty” to avoid what “may fast become a humanitarian predicament”.
But state and federal governments, which had benefitted in “the good times”, should “help now”, he said.
“For our state … international education … is our single most important sector when it comes to earning overseas revenue.”
Professor Martin has taken a 25 per cent pay cut this year and is donating $4000 a month to Deakin’s student emergency assistance fund, according to a university spokesperson.
Last week the Independent sent a series of questions relating to income loss and staff cuts to Professor Martin, which he declined to answer.
