Wollongong University Inc. Profit over jobs as consultants prosper

The University of Wollongong has cut hundreds of jobs as leaders claim they are experiencing financial difficulties, despite good cash flow and consultants being successful. Adam Lucas And James Guthrie report.

this week Four Corners The episode highlighted the consultancy craze at public universities in Australia. Severe, arguably unnecessary redundancies, course closures and de-discipline were the direct result of this transformation in the core mission of Australian universities.

While the financialization of universities and the accompanying consultancy craze have emerged with increasing force over the last decade, these have accelerated since Covid-19. The University of Wollongong (UOW) provides an instructive case study of these closely interrelated processes. Four Corners investigation and disclosures from the current NSW parliamentary inquiry into university governance.

Over the last two years, UOW has cut 191 full-time jobs (about 10% of its workforce) and gutted entire disciplines by cutting dozens of courses and majors. This is on top of more than 400 positions being laid off in the wake of COVID, as well as all the knowledge and expertise that comes with them.

But UOW’s income and expenditure statements reveal that it was not the financial crisis that drove the University of Wollongong to make these decisions; It was a strategy. One based on dangerous numbers, concentrated power,

and a pattern of misleading parliament, staff and the public.

A college cash flow machine

Cash flow records from UOW annual reports tell the true story of significant operating surpluses. Between 2015 and 2016, these surpluses exceeded $90 million per year with minimal debt.

In 2017, UOW changed its approach and embarked on a debt-fueled spree, borrowing $175 million for its expansion plans. By 2019, the business was so aggressively converting its cash into assets that net liquidity fell by $119 million in a good year; This suggests that UOW’s financial weaknesses from its commercial real estate development strategy began before the pandemic (UOW Annual Reports 2015–19).

This was not a university on the brink; It was a surplus machine that chose to pump cash into expansion long before Covid.

University of Wollongong ‘six weeks away’ from disaster unless staff accept major pay cuts and job losses

Conflict denied

Just weeks after the unexpected early departure of former Vice-Chancellor Trish Davidson in early 2024, UOW’s new Chancellor Michael Still has appointed former Latrobe Vice-Chancellor John Dewar as Interim Vice-Chancellor. Professor Dewar was a partner at consultancy KordaMentha, which was hired around the same time to conduct an “institution-wide operations review” of UOW.

In September 2024, UOW executives assured the public that Interim Vice-Chancellor John Dewar was on unpaid leave from KordaMentha and that the firm’s $2 million review contract had been signed before it began. Documents released under GIPA shattered this story.

Dewar’s UOW contract began on 3 June 2024. That same day, Chancellor Still signed an agreement allowing Dewar to continue working one day every two weeks for KordaMentha. Review tender closed on 21 June: KordaMentha’s contract was approved on 2 July (Langford 2025a, 2025b). Still, who was sworn in in December 2025, eventually acknowledged: “His [Dewar] He was in contact with them.” When asked if this was a conflict of interest, Still replied: “Probably. I don’t know.” (Inquiry Transcript, p. 41). The university had made statements to the NSW and federal parliaments that were misleading at best.

KordaMentha’s faulty advice

One of the most significant and arguably most damaging actions taken by the UOW executive was his implementation of the so-called “applicability of discipline” model that emerged from KordaMentha’s advice. The model was used as a blunt instrument to justify the elimination of more than 130 academic jobs, even though KordaMentha acknowledged in its final report that the data on which it was based was seriously inadequate. Garbage in, garbage out:

By any objective measure, this was a lie.

The model measured teaching income relative to all academic staff, including researchers; thus, research-intensive disciplines were automatically deemed “unviable”. It was also based on only one year of registration data, and its disciplines automatically penalized staff in training or on long service leave. Even when staff repeatedly pointed out that the figures were unrepresentative or inaccurate, nothing was done to change the underlying methodology.

Staff who raised their concerns were sent a notice stating that their professional experience “remains the property of the University”. Chancellor Still later confirmed that 27 staff departures in three years had occurred on joke terms (Still Answers 2026, p. 8).

governance failure

When the ax fell at the end of 2024, Chancellor Still chaired the Council’s five most powerful committees: Finance, Performance and Remuneration, and the board overseeing restructuring. Important decisions could be made by only three appointed members; Selected staff and students were excluded.

During the NSW Inquiry hearings last December, the Chancellor announced that after deciding the former Deputy Chancellor’s performance was inadequate, he would need to discuss this with the Council in early 2024 and called for a meeting attended by “independent members” only. One of them, the Vice-Chancellor, a partner at KPMG, explained that the elected representatives were employees, so informing them about the situation and listening to their views was considered “inappropriate” (Inquiry Text 17 December 2025, pp. 57-58).

This is not management: it is a closed shop.

Final butcher bill: 191.4 full-time positions gone – 92 academic, 100 professional – saving $36.8 million annually. Meanwhile, UOW’s own annual report showed international student income rising in 2024. The Community and Public Sector Alliance called the whole exercise a “corporate turnaround”.

And then $6.6 million in underpayments to 5,340 staff. The Fair Work Ombudsman directly attributed this to “deficiencies in management processes” (Lu Answers 2026, pp. 7-8). It’s the same management that is now unrivalled.

This was not a difficult decision made in good faith. This was a financialized fantasy sold on flawed metrics, run by a board of directors that concentrated power and excluded scrutiny, and defended with explanations that did not hold water.

The rot started from the top. The smell and its source still remain.

ICAC questions University of Wollongong chancellor in inquiry