Uni to keep helping struggling students
A MAJOR Gold Coast university has been hit hard by Australia’s international student downturn in the wake of the coronavirus border closures, resulting in cost cuts and signalling at least 300 voluntary redundancies to come.
Despite the impact, Griffith University has committed to extend its rollout of bursaries for struggling students, which has totalled more than $3.96 million so far this year.
More than 1400 applications have been received for the third round of the Griffith COVID-19 Student Support Bursary, with most applications – more than 70 per cent – from international students who had remained in the country.
Griffith Vice-Chancellor and president Carolyn Evans said the university, which employs 4500 people across its campuses on the Gold Coast and in Brisbane, had felt the impact of coronavirus border closures. In turn, it had made cuts to “pretty much every aspect’’ of operation – except student support.
Griffith’s response follows steps taken by Southern Cross University administration last month, when its staff were asked to take a 10 per cent cut to their workload and pay, and forgo the next two pay rises.
Professor Evans said as with other tertiary institutions, Griffith expected the next four years would be difficult, because a return of international students remained uncertain.
“There is an expected loss of around $100 million in revenue,’’ she said. “This means lots of cuts to the capital works program and general spending. It also means 300 fewer jobs this year, through voluntary redundancy.”
The university has not yet determined from which campus the bulk of the job losses will come.
“We are still in a better position than many universities but talk of voluntary early retirement is very tough when staff have gone above and beyond, to make research and learning available online through this time.”
Despite the tough outlook, Prof Evans said there had been a continued increase in financial support for students, with an extension of the ongoing loan and bursary program that would total about $5 million.
“Look, we have cut costs pretty much in every aspect of what we are doing,” Prof Evans said. “The only area substantially increased is in supporting our students.
“Our students come from a mix of economic backgrounds so we felt it was particularly important they are supported in this.
“We have decided we will continue the commitment to halfway through next trimester. Fortunately, we are seeing some jobs begin to return, but we are certainly a long way away from being back to normal, particularly on the Gold Coast, where so many students are reliant on tourism jobs.”
Prof Evans said the level of need among Gold Coast students came as a shock, with thousands applying for bursaries of up to $1500.
“We realise there was a strong level of need but just how much there was probably comes as a bit of a surprise,” she said.
“There were anecdotes of students struggling without internet or computers at home when the shutdowns first began. Now we are seeing more of a need for assistance with basic necessities like food, rent and text books.”
To help fund the bursary pool, executive staff had agreed to give 20 per cent of their salaries, she said.