The ANU’s annual report, tabled in parliament last week, reports a headline surplus on the ANU consolidated account of just under $90m on revenues of $1.636bn. Operating revenue was stable, up $13m while costs increased $60m, driven by an 8% hike in staff payments, to $862m. At 55% of revenue this is broadly in-line with the HE average.
However when one-offs, variable investment income and tied-funding is excluded there was an underlying deficit of $142m (nearly 9% of revenue), up from $108m (7%) in ’23.
ANU did not benefit from the post-Pandemic international student boom, with fee income up just 5% to $296m, a fraction of the earnings of major metropolitan Group of Eight universities.
Overall, ANU depends on the $237m National Institutes Grant it receives from the Commonwealth. This dates from the university’s foundation after World War Two, when it was conceived as a national resource for “nationally important concentrations of research and education.”
Critics of the current job cuts can point to the headline surplus and argue that subtracting some revenue streams is a cover for a management plan to put profit above people. The management plan is to reduce annual expenditure of $250m, $100m from staff.
In announcing the annual report, VC Genevieve Bell sticks to the now time-worn script on staff cuts, stating the University’s 2024 operating deficit meant it spent $2.7m a week more than it earned.
But while she cops criticism, Professor Bell’s is not the first attempt to fix the finances.
In 2020 the University managed a headline surplus of $17m with an underlying loss of $160m and management predicting losses of “a similar magnitude” through to 2023.
By April 2021, 460 jobs had been cut but then vice chancellor Brian Schmidt, told staff that there should be no more job losses. “The sacrifices you have all made in the past year have gone a long way towards reducing our deficit and future-proofing the university from further financial shocks.”
Even on the 2024 headline numbers, perhaps not the future he imagined.