Australian vice-chancellors are among the highest paid in the world.Australia’s top-earning vice chancellors are pocketing six times the salaries of their university’s most senior professors, as the tertiary education union calls for an inquiry into growing wage theft scandals.
The University of Sydney’s VC, Mark Scott, received a pay rise of around $75,000 in 2023, taking home more than $1.17 million.The outgoing VC of Melbourne University, Duncan Maskell, was on more than $1.4 million, though he took a pay cut of about $60,000 compared to the year before, while Latrobe’s then VC, John Dewar, took a roughly $20,000 cut.
A public process legislated by the states for stable remuneration, governed beyond just closed-door university councils, could help rein in salaries, Marginson said. Some in the sector, however, have defended vice chancellor pay as justified given their mammoth remit: running complex institutions the size of ASX top 10 companies, with more staff and huge numbers of enrolments, yet operating with