It's a weird time to be working at #LincolnUniversityNZ.

We've bounced back from the earthquakes and covid lockdowns and there's been an optimistic buzz in the air. The earthquake damaged buildings are mostly replaced and in the last few years Lincoln has had some of its highest enrolments ever. Last year it graduated the highest number of graduates in its 147 year history.

Ironically, getting more enrolments than expected has been bad because that doesn't equate to more government funding, which instead continues to decline in real terms. NZ universities receive about *a third* less funding than the OECD average.

The solution, we learned from the Vice Chancellor Grant Edwards yesterday, is that the university is going to have to lose 40 of it's about 700 staff. Presumably those that remain will, once again, need to pick up the slack.

This kind of austerity is squeezing the life out of NZ's universities. The same thing is happening to the science sector. NZ's newly combined Bioeconomy Science Institute also going through redundancies so it can survive on less government funding.

Please remember this at the upcoming election. Investing tax dollars in research and higher education is *good* for the country.

😔

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/590629/lincoln-university-to-cut-40-full-time-equivalent-jobs

https://insidegovernment.co.nz/record-graduation-for-lincoln-university/

#LincolnUniversityNZ #jobcuts #austerity #science #universities #AcademicChatter