Potential budget cuts would mean domestic students would lose places at UQ
Michell See-Tho reports in the Brisbane Times (2.12.14): ‘The University of Queensland is “flying blind” with its 2015 budget, according to Vice-Chancellor Professor Peter Høj. “We actually don’t know where we’re going to end up,” he said yesterday. Professor Høj said government funding uncertainty meant the university’s budget had to account for “shocks” and unknowns. He said back-up plans include possible cuts to spending on equipment and science labs. “We know what the proposed cuts would mean to us but we have no idea what the legislation will look like in the end so it is quite a hypothetical,” he said. Professor Høj’s main concern was that the proposed cuts would mean reductions to research funding and that international students would take places of domestic students. International students pay much higher university fees than domestic students. UQ might have to take more international students to make up for the potential budget cuts, he said. He said with about 50,000 students, UQ had grown “as big as we can”. Taking international students would mean domestic students would lose places. “That would be, in my view, very unfortunate,” he said.’
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