Universities in Sydney are experiencing financial pressure, with job cuts and course suspensions.
Their leaders faced scrutiny over both their institutions’ financial troubles and their own high salaries during a Senate public hearing on higher education governance on Sept. 8.
Leaders of the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), which triggered outrage among students and staff for suspending over 100 courses, explained the decision at the committee.
UTS announced on Aug. 14 that it would suspend enrolments in 146 courses for the Autumn 2026 semester. The university has revealed it will cut 400 jobs, approximately 10 percent of its total staff, in a bid to save $100 million.
Andrew Parfitt, vice chancellor and president of UTS, stated that the decision is a temporary suspension to review the financial sustainability and supportability of the courses.
Kylie Readman, deputy vice chancellor (education and students) at UTS, said that while it seems a large number of courses, 54 of the 120 courses temporarily suspended related to just two courses—the Bachelor of International Studies and the Bachelor of International Studies honours, which are “combined degrees” across the university.
“Thirty-three of those courses had fewer than 10 enrolments, and a further 31 had no students enrolled, so you can see from that that we were making decisions based on an important criteria, which is the enrolment,” she said.
Asked how many students might be impacted by the course suspensions, Rieman answered that it was difficult to tell for sure, as the change involves prospective students.
“But what I do know is, if I looked at these courses, commencing students in 2025 was less than 1,000 or so out of about 38,000 or so at the university. That’s total,” she said.
Parfitt was questioned by the Senate on his annual salary of $935,000.
He answered that the senior executive and the senior staff group will not “be paid any bonus or performance components,” which is a saving across the university of about $2.5 million.
