Victoria University to commercially toughen up student accommodation sector

Vice-chancellor professor Grant Guilford says the scale of the challenges in the accommodation division continued to grow. Photo / File.

Victoria University is advertising a new job for ideally a chartered accountant in its campus and living division to make it more commercially "hard bitten".

The university's accommodation sector is usually budgeted to break even but is this year expected to lose $12 million.

The new role of commercial and finance associate director has been created to "fill a gap" in the approach to the operations of the Student Campus and Living business unit.

The position is exempt from the university's hiring freeze, as it is considered essential.

The successful candidate will develop a financially sustainable strategy and ensure operations are looked at through a commercial lens.

"The ideal candidate will be a chartered accountant and have a background in commercial property and financial leadership. In addition, you will have expert commercial nous and insight and strong analytical and influencing skills," the advertisement said.

The new role comes after Victoria University backtracked on charging students $150 a week for rooms in halls of residence they couldn't live in.

Initially students were told they would need to start paying for accommodation when the country moved to alert level 3, after fees were waived during the Covid-19 lockdown.

The move sparked a public backlash, uniting MPs and councillors across the political spectrum, and students who threatened a rent strike.

Now, Parliament's Education and Workforce Committee has launched an inquiry into student accommodation.

Victoria University Vice-chancellor Professor Grant Guilford said the new role being advertised was considered essential because the scale of the challenges in the accommodation division continued to grow.

That has been driven by things like the fee waiver for students during the Covid-19 pandemic and empty beds which otherwise would have been filled by international students, he said.

The university has about 3500 beds to look after.

Guilford said there was good pastoral care at Victoria's halls of residence to look after student needs but commercial skills were not as strong.

"When we start dealing with landlords, and contractual relationships with caterers, and new capital developments and the like.

"So we're thinking to ensure we're not always just a price taker on those things, and therefore driving up the cost to students of recovering those costs, we need to get a bit more hard bitten in our commercial skillsets in the halls when we're dealing with these other providers."

In an email sent to staff last month, Guilford invited staff to donate some of their salaries to pay for roles such as tutors and residential assistants that might otherwise not be affordable.

He said staff should consider participating in the "giving programme" if they felt their personal circumstances allowed them to do so.

Staff could make optional donations from their salary or wages to support student or staff hardship funds or other causes, Guilford said.

"This is a good way to directly support particular areas of the university (e.g. to pay for short-term roles such as tutors, teaching assistants, research assistants, residential assistants and other such roles that might otherwise not be affordable)."