CQUniversity 'unviable' by 2011 | Bundaberg News | Local News in Bundaberg

The Morning Bulletin

AN alarming state government report into the finances of CQUniversity Australia has shown there is no more money for capital expenditure and that the university will become unviable some time in 2011.

A spokesman for the university said dropping enrolments, mostly from international students, had become cause for concern.

“We have come off some good years with international student numbers,” he said.

“We are now faced with the reality if things continue as is, we won't be in a reasonable position in the future.”

A spokesman for CQUniversity Australia said more federal government funding support, combined with initiatives to make the university more relevant to local markets, was needed to make the organisation more viable.

“The report clearly backs up what we have known and what we have said for a long time, that it is extraordinarily expensive to run a regionally-based university,” he said.

The spokesman said he did not know what changes would be made at a university level.

“But the end point we want is to have more enrolments, a program better suited to requirements of central Queensland and to be more flexible in how we respond to and absorb changes.”

Member for Hinkler Paul Neville has been a vocal advocate for regional universities for almost two decades and said he would not lie down on this issue.

“I will be outraged if anyone lays a hand on our regional campuses,” Mr Neville said.

“There needs to be very strong and unequivocal statement from the community that we want this university.

“And from business that they are not going to accept the closure of any of our regional campuses.”

Mr Neville said he agreed that the federal government needed to put more into regional universities.

“That should not be an excuse to lie back and take it easy, but regional university and campuses do require additional subsidy.”