AUSTRALIA: Universities seek top-up funding

Universities are pressing Canberra to provide 'top-up' funding for teaching to see the sector through next year given that any new funding out of the Bradley Review of higher education will not materialise until 2010, reports The Australian Higher Education. Universities are set to be squeezed next year by a 2.1% indexed rise in their government-operating grants, which lags far behind inflation that is now running at around 5%.

At a time when universities are battling to try to limit academic pay increases to just 4% in current pay talks, while being squeezed by steep falls in investment income and losses from the end of full-fee paying domestic students, the sector is asking the federal government for what Universities Australia calls a "transition cost adjustment factor". It is asking Canberra to effectively double indexation for 2009 to around 4% in line with annualised inflation. That would increase indexation for 2008-09 from about $110 million to $220 million.

The Bradley Review is set to release its findings in December.
Full report on The Australian Higher Education site