University executives should be held accountable for job losses and underpaying workers instead of being rewarded with "excessive" salaries, the union representing the sector says.
More than 300 university executives were paid more than their state premier while many vice-chancellors earned more than double the prime minister, a National Tertiary Education Union report found.
Universities have warned impending cuts to university student intakes will result in funding shortfalls and force them to reduce their workforce and courses.
Rather than being held accountable for poor governance, top executives at universities such as the University of Melbourne and the University of NSW are being paid upwards of $1.3 million, the union's national president Alison Barnes said.
"It beggars belief that institutions like Monash University have 16 executives who are paid more than the state premier (Jacinta Allan)," she told AAP.
"They're being paid these extraordinary sums, but there's not much evidence that they're doing great things for the institutions that they're supposed to manage when we have nearly $400 million of wage theft.
"Which vice-chancellor has lost their job over wage theft?
"Where is the accountability?"
The report found universities spent $734 million on consulting in 2023 while 11 institutions that retrenched almost 4800 staff in 2020 and 2021 added 3600 staff in 2023 before announcing another 2200 job losses in 2024 - emblematic of poor workforce planning.
Meanwhile, more staff are suffering from insecure employment, with 68 per cent of workers in the sector on casual or fixed-term contracts.
Federal Education Minister Jason Clare has promised to strengthen university governance frameworks and ensure a more transparent approach to determining executive salaries.
Chief executive of Group of Eight Vicki Thomson, which represents Australia's largest universities, said it was an appropriate move for the government to make.
But cutting executive salaries would not fix the chronic underfunding that was to blame for budget shortfalls and job losses, she said.
"I understand the political attractiveness of rolling that (argument) out, but I think even if our university vice-chancellors work for free, you still wouldn't be solving the distorted funding model," Ms Thomson said.
"It's an easy, cheap political shot when you start to talk about VC salaries in the context of what we do about international students and caps."
The Group of Eight universities spend about $8.5 billion a year on research but only receive $2.3 billion from the government, leaving a gaping funding shortfall largely made up by international student fees.
Government interventions such as throttling student visa approvals have further eroded funding streams, while a proposed cap on foreign students would exacerbate the issue.
"I don't know any other multi-billion dollar enterprises which would have such uncertainty about a revenue stream," Ms Thomson said.
"Universities had to forecast potential losses of up to $200 to $300 million - that meant jobs."
