Million-dollar-plus pay ‘now the norm’ for Australian v-cs
Seven-figure remuneration has become the norm for Australian vice-chancellors, with a Covid-era slump in executive pay now well and truly over.
Leaders of the 38 publicly funded universities earned slightly over A$1.02 million (£487,000) last year, on average, according to a Times Higher Education analysis of 2024 institutional accounts.
The figure is about A$3,000 lower than the 2023 average but A$30,000 higher than in 2019. It is more than A$70,000 higher than in 2020, when many university executives took pay cuts to help reduce costs during the coronavirus pandemic.
Last year’s vice-chancellor remuneration correlated loosely with institutional size. Of the 21 who earned over A$1 million, 14 ran universities with revenue of over a billion dollars.
The relationship with financial performance was looser. Five vice-chancellors in the million-dollar-plus crowd presided over deteriorating financial margins, compared with three of the lesser-paid university bosses.
THE has used the midpoints of the reported remuneration bands for each institution’s top-paid executive as estimates of vice-chancellors’ earnings. The figures include superannuation and often perks like vehicles and houses, as well as long-service leave and annual leave accrued from earlier years. Figures in annual reports are sometimes subject to revision.
Executive salary features heavily in grievances about university governance, with unionists and politicians incensed about pay packets that dwarf those of national leaders and overseas university chiefs. A private member’s bill lodged by independent Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie would halve most vice-chancellors’ salaries by imposing a A$430,000 statutory limit.
An “Expert Council on University Governance”, formed on the urging of the federal, state and territory education ministers, is developing “principles” around executive remuneration – among nine other “priority areas” – for adoption by institutions following a meeting of the education ministers in mid-October.
“[They] are principles that all universities can sign up to or, if they can’t, they can explain why not,” federal education minister Jason Clare told the Australian Financial Review Higher Education Summit last week, adding that vice-chancellors should not “be defensive about this. This is not about belting universities. It’s about working together to make our universities better. University governance is not up to scratch.”
The University Chancellors Council (UCC), which is represented on the expert governance council, has pre-empted the deliberations by proposing that the Commonwealth Remuneration Tribunal give governing councils “independent, nationally consistent advice” about vice-chancellor remuneration.
UCC described its suggestion as a “proactive move” to develop a “new advisory framework. This is about strengthening public trust through credible, sector-led reform,” said UCC convener John Pollaers.
In fact, the tribunal has been obliged to scrutinise vice-chancellors’ pay for more than half a century, although there is little evidence that it has done so in at least half a decade. The Remuneration Tribunal Act 1973 requires the organisation to enquire into and report on university executives’ pay “from time to time”. It also empowers the prime minister to request such reviews.
A hearing of the Senate’s Education and Employment Committee, which is also enquiring into university governance, was told that submissions to the expert council must be lodged through a UCC staff member. “It’s almost like making Dracula in charge of the blood bank,” Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi observed. “People might not…put in submissions critiquing councils if they have to [do so] through the UCC.”
Some university leaders, along with shadow education minister Jonathon Duniam, consider the vice-chancellor salary debate a “distraction” from more pressing issues such as funding. And while vice-chancellors are criticised as big earners, some are also big donors. THE understands that many quietly contribute large sums to their own universities, mostly to support students.
THE asked 40 universities about their vice-chancellors’ philanthropic behaviour. Most did not reply, two declined to comment and three promised information that never arrived. Eight confirmed that their leaders contributed to the university, but just one specified how much.
That vice-chancellor reported making regular contributions to help “students in financial need”, totalling A$30,000 in 2024. “I donate towards the student scholarship fund because I believe in the importance of supporting university education for everyone. I know from hearing first-hand from students how much it means to them. It also gives me credibility when I ask others to donate.”
Evidence of vice-chancellor philanthropy is occasionally contained in universities’ annual reports. University of Tasmania boss Rufus Black has donated A$100,000 of his A$1 million-odd pay packet to the institution each year since 2020. The AFR reported that RMIT University vice-chancellor Alec Cameron had donated A$67,733 – earnings from his role as a UniSuper board member – to support students.