‘Outrageous’: SA’s uni merger consultancy spend revealed
The new merged university upped its multimillion-dollar spend on consultants in 2025, the same year that a damning Senate inquiry spotlighted consultants infiltrating higher education.
Adelaide University spent about $105.9 million on consultants in 2025, up from $60.9 million in 2024, according to SA’s Auditor-General.
The Auditor-General’s report, tabled in parliament on Thursday afternoon, revealed the spike in consultancy spend to facilitate the merger ahead of the new university officially opening in January.
A tertiary education union boss slammed the consultancy spend as “a gross misuse of the public purse”, given the merger cost state taxpayers about $450 million.
The consultancy costs made up the bulk of the university’s ‘other expenses’, outspending areas like advertising and marketing, which the university spent about $25 million on.
Both consultants and advertising were considered “significant expenses” by the Auditor-General, along with $19.9 million on software licensing and $15.4 million on temporary staff costs.
Consultancy costs represent about 9.6 per cent of the university’s total employee-related expenses.
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The Auditor-General said there were “no significant findings” of its audit, and that this was communicated to the University’s Vice Chancellor and President.
National Tertiary Education Union SA Secretary Andrew Miller said the consultancy cost was “an outrageous overspend”, saying the university had plenty of talent in-house.
“It has the skills and professionals, doing this work within would be more deeply connected to the learning, teaching and research culture,” Miller said.
Miller said the figures speak to “profound problems” in the university sector where governance structures are “too corporatised” and “in bed with mysterious and secretive corporations”.
Consultancy spending was spotlighted in a scathing 183-page report from the federal government Senate inquiry into Australian universities released last year.
The inquiry heard “troubling evidence of a ‘revolving door’ between universities and major consulting firms, creating real and perceived conflicts of interest”.
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It pointed specifically to Deloitte’s appointment to the merged university, with Deloitte’s Asia-Pacific CEO having previously sat on the University of Adelaide council.
The latest financial reports released by the Audit Office also note that consultancy spending will continue, with the university’s future “operating expenditure commitments” primarily relating to technology and consulting services to finalise the merger.
The merger of the University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia was announced in 2023.
It attracted controversy over the future of face-to-face lecturers, the process of choosing a Kaurna name, and a drop in international student numbers.
Earlier this month, budget concerns emerged after the number of new international students at Adelaide University was recorded at around 40 per cent below target for semester one, with a projected revenue shortfall for the university of $90 million for 2026.
Adelaide University received a $10 million grant from the state government specifically for marketing the university to international students in 2025, according to the Auditor General’s report.
The report did not cover the period when the university was operational, but found that in 2025, the University of Adelaide made $351 million in international student fee revenue, while UniSA recorded about $344.8 in international student fee revenue.
Across all SA universities, international student-related income hit $802 million in 2025 – a 49.3 per cent growth rate over four years.
According to Adelaide University, the new institution will contribute an estimated $4.7 billion a year to the Australian economy and $500 million a year to South Australia’s economy.
Adelaide University was contacted for comment, but did not respond by the time of publication.
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