Surplus requirements: how NZ universities make their money

Many changes to universities' incomes depend on decision that tertiary education and skills minister Penny Simmonds can take. (Image: NZME)

Murray Jones

Wed, 27 Mar 2024

As BusinessDesk reported earlier this year, the university sector was projected to record a deficit for the first time in 2023. Another is predicted for 2024. Many individual universities recorded an underlying deficit in 2022, which was masked sector-wide by the $98 million surplus of The University of Auckland.In this two-part series, we take a look at the institutions’ balance sheets over the past decade and ask: where does the funding come from, how is it being spent, and what can be done to get the sector back into the...

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