University of Adelaide Vice-Chancellor Professor Peter Høj told a meeting of students, staff and graduates yesterday that the university’s net underlying result for 2022 was in the order of $10-12 million.

He said student-related revenue came in at $552 million – $30 million less than what the university expected.

But Høj said the university was still “on a footing that is financially stable”.

“This is actually better than we thought it would be, but you can see in a $1 billion revenue, we’re sailing relatively close to the wind,” he told the meeting.

“We have come through (20)22 in reasonably good shape.”

A drop in international student enrolments driven by COVID-prompted border closures led the university to warn of a “crisis” in 2021, with the institution axing over 100 staff and “rationalising” courses to stay afloat.

At the time, Høj warned that the university would face an annual shortfall of $47 million by 2023 if it did not make “difficult” decisions to claw back spending.

Høj told yesterday’s meeting that the university was now “slowing turning around” its international student numbers, with applications up by about 30 per cent from last year.

“The international students are starting again to be able to come here and show interest for our university,” he said.

“We have become even faster at identifying the students in that big application cohort which actually would successfully be able to complete a demanding course at the University of Adelaide, and we have increased our offers to students and done it faster than we normally do.

“This is a good sign and I think that it bodes well for the future in respect to our competitiveness.”

It comes as the University of Adelaide prepares to start formally consulting its students and staff next month about a potential merger with the University of South Australia.

Under an agreement signed with the state government in December, both universities have until the end of June to present the findings of a feasibility study to their respective councils.

It will then be up to the councils to decide whether a merger – and the creation of what will be known as “Adelaide University” by 2026 – is in their institutions’ best interests.

Høj, who is an outspoken merger advocate, told yesterday’s meeting that the proposed amalgamation would ensure the University of Adelaide stayed competitive and sustainable.

He said he had a vision for “Adelaide University” to do “breakthrough research – both fundamental and partner research better than anybody else in Australia particularly in the department of environment”.

“The world is changing very rapidly,” he said.

“For those of you who were around between 2000 and 2010, you would have seen that most of the top universities in the world came from the Anglosphere – that has totally changed now.

“It means that if we want to stay as a top 100 university in the world, we need to find ways of resourcing ourselves to do that.”

The University of Adelaide this year ranked number 88 out of more than 10,000 universities across the globe in the Times Higher Education World University Ranking.

Høj said he believed “Adelaide University” would become a “top 100 university for the long-run”, but he conceded that there could be an initial “dip” in the ranking if the amalgamation goes ahead.

“I think depending on how much work we do before 2026 to position ourselves and market ourselves in a very determined fashion with more resource than we do now, it is possible that our QS and Times higher education rankings will not fall,” he said.

“There is a reasoned article from the University of New South Wales, which runs one of the key rankings in Australia – the academic ranking of top universities – where they speculate at least by 2028, which would be two to three years after our start, that we might actually be quite a bit stronger than we are now.

“My honest opinion is that I think there will be a dip, but I don’t think it will be an ever-lasting dip.

“I think it will be a dip and then the greater resource base that the combined university will have would fuel our journey towards higher and more stable rankings.”

Asked if the university had considered alternative ways of becoming more competitive if it chose not to go ahead with the merger, Høj said: “The alternative is to find different sources of revenue”.

“Many people often mention to us: ‘Why do you have to be big to be world famous? Look at Princeton, look at Harvard,” he said.

“First of all, we have to understand that the Ivy League is about eight universities in a population of 330 million people – 13 times larger than ours.

“We also have to realise that the Ivy League graduates about 30,000 students per annum or thereabouts… and you can’t run a 330 million population out of that.

“But, the most important thing to realise that those universities – Princeton, Yale, Harvard – would have an endowment in the order of $40-50 billion US, so if that throws off about five per cent per annum net of cost and setting aside two to three per cent CPI, they would have a revenue of $2.5 billion US to run themselves.

“It is an alternative, we just have to find about 50,000 people who would give us $1 million each and we would get there.”

Høj also released the results of a staff survey conducted between October and November, which showed just 38 per cent trusted the senior leadership of the University of Adelaide.

He said that result was an improvement from the previous year, when only 29 per cent of staff said they trusted the university’s leadership.

“There is obviously something that has to be done in order for us to gain greater trust as leaders,” he said.

The University of Adelaide is the only university in South Australia that is required under legislation to hold a community meeting each year.