Modelling from Macquarie University reveals student learning time and subject choices will be slashed if it pushes ahead with savage cuts to its staff this week.
Nearly a third of Arts subjects will be removed from the 2026 curriculum as part of sweeping changes which come after the university executive knocked-back their own planning which would have met the $55 million budget objectives without any redundancies.
The modelling also reveals the Faculty of Arts are planning to reduce tutorial weeks by more than 25 per cent, lecture weeks by almost 17 per cent, and allocate just 36 minutes to each student for marking, down from one hour.
The Vice-Chancellor's cuts have been so unpopular that a senior manager described them as having "a stench" that the Executive was now "desperate to avoid".
National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) Macquarie Branch President Dr Nick Harrigan said the data makes the consequences for students impossible to ignore. "This is the clearest evidence yet Macquarie's cuts come at the direct expense of students.
"You cannot remove a third of subjects, cut teaching weeks, slash tutorials and halve the amount of time students receive feedback on their work without the quality of education plummeting. These cuts are acts of vandalism against the core purpose of a university.
"Every staff member I speak with is already at breaking point. We're the ones who support students when they are struggling.
"We are the ones reading drafts at midnight, meeting students after class, pushing through exhaustion because the work matters.
"To cut time further is to instruct us to stop caring. And that is something we refuse to do.
"Management have privately modelled these cuts but haven't had the courage to tell students or staff about them and what they really mean: a smaller degree for students for the same price and higher workloads for those lucky enough to keep their jobs," Dr Harrigan said. The NTEU is calling on Macquarie to urgently halt its plans to terminate 18 academics this week, on top of roughly 47 voluntary redundancies already in progress.
"There is absolutely no justification for forced redundancies at Macquarie University when other NSW universities have ruled them out entirely," NTEU NSW Secretary Vince Caughley said.
"That 18 people are about to lose their jobs when the university's own documents show management had an option to meet the full savings target without a single redundancy is completely unconscionable.
"Through its enterprise agreement Macquarie made a commitment to reduce casualisation, not entrench it, through forced redundancies which push more work onto underpaid, insecure staff.
"Macquarie is now one of the few universities still choosing this path, which is the exact opposite of what management promised."
NTEU National President Dr Alison Barnes said Macquarie's leaders' actions were a perfect example of the need for governance reform.
"These unjustified job cuts are a perfect example of what we see right across the country: poor workforce planning leading to a hiring-firing yo-yo," she said.
"Short-sighted cuts hollow out critical disciplines, with staff constantly asked to do more with less and the student experience suffers."
