![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Hey, look, a Federal Minister who is talking through her hat!
Speaking as someone who talks with those who do University budgetting, I can say that Julie Bishop, once again, has no idea what is going on. Or else is deliberately misrepresenting and over-simplifying a complex situation for her own political benefit...
So Universities are building up surplusses. Would she like to know why?
It's for the same reason squirrels hoard nuts.
When things are going well, when grants and other funding sources are secure and plentiful, most departments don't worry too much about increasing their surplusses. They don't, as a rule, run them into the ground (unless they are being run by idiots...), but they don't panic so much. If capital works are required, upgraded buildings, for example, it can be budgetted for. Normal expenses, like upgrading computers as they become obsolete, are also budgetted for. Surplusses can be, and are, fed into expansion: new academics, new offices, new courses, new professional support. This is seen to be a good thing, and is also human nature. Every HoD wants to increase the size of his (almost always ‘his’) little empire — even if he's expecting to move on in a year or so, it looks good on the résumé.
When it looks like things are going to get bad, however... Then a nest-egg is needed. You need a buffer to tide you over the lean times ahead. That surplus is going into savings, and when the bad times come, it will go to cover the normal everyday needs which the normal funding sources won't cover any more. That surplus will go on needed upgrades, and salary. And still, positions will shrink, or disappear, and equipment will be held on to for longer, being patched with baling wire and chewing gum instead of being replaced. Academics share offices (which can be more of an imposition than you might think). The hope is that that surplus will keep things ticking over until student numbers rise again, until grants come back, until funding is restored.
If the Universities are spending so much effort on raising surplusses, it means that they are expecting (not just contemplating, but actively waiting for) a big problem coming soon. It means that they don't feel that funding sources are reliable enough to, well, to rely on. It means that the foundation of universities, funding per undergrad bum-on-seat is expected to decrease.
And further to this, the numbers quoted were averaged over the G8. Unimelb is part of the G8. Unimelb is doing the Melbourne Model thing, which is expected to result in a short-to-medium term decrease in ugrads. A noticeable decrease. How much, therefore, of that wonderful surplus which Bishop is blathering about (and will almost certainly use as an excuse not to improve funding of universities thereby) is simply Melbourne Uni hunkering down for an expected long winter?
So Universities are building up surplusses. Would she like to know why?
It's for the same reason squirrels hoard nuts.
When things are going well, when grants and other funding sources are secure and plentiful, most departments don't worry too much about increasing their surplusses. They don't, as a rule, run them into the ground (unless they are being run by idiots...), but they don't panic so much. If capital works are required, upgraded buildings, for example, it can be budgetted for. Normal expenses, like upgrading computers as they become obsolete, are also budgetted for. Surplusses can be, and are, fed into expansion: new academics, new offices, new courses, new professional support. This is seen to be a good thing, and is also human nature. Every HoD wants to increase the size of his (almost always ‘his’) little empire — even if he's expecting to move on in a year or so, it looks good on the résumé.
When it looks like things are going to get bad, however... Then a nest-egg is needed. You need a buffer to tide you over the lean times ahead. That surplus is going into savings, and when the bad times come, it will go to cover the normal everyday needs which the normal funding sources won't cover any more. That surplus will go on needed upgrades, and salary. And still, positions will shrink, or disappear, and equipment will be held on to for longer, being patched with baling wire and chewing gum instead of being replaced. Academics share offices (which can be more of an imposition than you might think). The hope is that that surplus will keep things ticking over until student numbers rise again, until grants come back, until funding is restored.
If the Universities are spending so much effort on raising surplusses, it means that they are expecting (not just contemplating, but actively waiting for) a big problem coming soon. It means that they don't feel that funding sources are reliable enough to, well, to rely on. It means that the foundation of universities, funding per undergrad bum-on-seat is expected to decrease.
And further to this, the numbers quoted were averaged over the G8. Unimelb is part of the G8. Unimelb is doing the Melbourne Model thing, which is expected to result in a short-to-medium term decrease in ugrads. A noticeable decrease. How much, therefore, of that wonderful surplus which Bishop is blathering about (and will almost certainly use as an excuse not to improve funding of universities thereby) is simply Melbourne Uni hunkering down for an expected long winter?