Peter Nicholl
University on the up
In my column below, I wrote that Waikato University’s ranking of 250th in the QR global rankings of universities placed it sixth amongst New Zealand’s eight universities.
That was wrong. It was fifth. Its 2023 ranking was very close to two other New Zealand universities, Massey at 239 and Victoria at 241. Waikato University was also the big mover amongst the NZ universities in 2023 rising a remarkable 81 places from its 2022 ranking of 331.
Two other strong results for Waikato University were that it was ranked number one amongst New Zealand universities for Business and Economics for the second year in a row and was also ranked first for citations per faculty. This is used as a measure of the impact of the university’s research.
6 July 2023
Many organisations in New Zealand that come under financial pressure blame government under-funding.
The health sector has for a long-time and is probably justified in making the claim. The latest set of institutions to make this claim is our universities. It’s harder to say if they are justified.
New Zealand has eight universities. Last financial year, six had financial deficits. The two with a financial surplus were our biggest, Auckland, and our smallest, Lincoln. So, the results weren’t due to the advantages of scale that being big can provide.
The government has accepted the claim of government under-funding in part. They announced a rescue package of $128 million last week. But the funding has strings attached, a requirement to do a thorough review of the whole sector.
Some thought part of the problem was too many universities. I did a comparison with Australia and Canada. New Zealand has one university for each 640,000 people. Australia has 43 universities, one for each 615,000 people. Canada has around 100 universities, one for each 390,000 people. Eight universities in a country the size of New Zealand does not therefore look to be out of line with similar countries.
The main reason why many of the universities slipped into deficit is that their revenue is heavily dependent on student numbers – and student numbers have fallen over the last few years. The drop in foreign students coming to New Zealand for university study was dramatic due to the borders being closed. The borders are now open and the universities are hoping the number of international students will bounce back quickly. It is a huge international market, but also a very competitive market.
The most important influences on students’ choices are the cost and quality of the overseas study. New Zealand probably compares favourably on the cost side but not on quality. There’s an annual international survey that ranks the world’s top 1500 universities. The latest ranking came out recently. New Zealand universities proudly announced that all their rankings rose. That’s good. But when you look at the rankings, the picture isn’t so good. Auckland University was the highest ranked New Zealand university with a ranking of 68. To put that in context, there were six universities in Australia with a higher ranking. Waikato ranked 250th. That put it sixth among the New Zealand universities
The number of New Zealand students also fell by about 6000 students last year. Interestingly, the number of people in apprenticeships or traineeships rose by a little more, 6,700. Having many young people switch from studying for a university qualification to studying for a trade qualification is probably a good thing for the country but it’s not a good thing for the universities.
The forthcoming review could ask if universities should offer such wide ranges of courses? For example, seven of the eight Universities offer MBA courses and there are six law schools. Some universities have opened campuses in the regions of other universities. Won’t they just poach the other university’s students with the end result being higher costs but no additional students overall?
The staff ratio of academic/research staff and other staff is around 1/1. That is a usual ratio in other countries too but it seems high to me. Maybe universities everywhere have an overheads problem.
