The main union for Canberra's universities is calling on the federal government to provide special funding to prevent job losses when the number of international students is restricted.
New figures indicate that the Australian National University will be harder hit than the University of Canberra when the government's ceiling on the number of students from abroad is introduced next year.
"We're calling on the government to make up any funding shortfalls to avoid job losses in our universities," the head of the National Tertiary Education Union in the ACT, Lachlan Clohesy, said.
"These are public institutions, this is a government policy, and therefore it is government that needs to take responsibility for any financial impacts," Dr Clohesy said.
"We need some sort of transition plan, with appropriate funding, to ensure that universities can withstand this policy change without job losses."
The Department of Education estimates that the ANU will be allowed 3400 new students from outside Australia under the government's cap (compared with 3972 in 2023).
But it estimates that the University of Canberra's number of enrolments of international students will rise slightly, from 1422 in 2023 to 1500.
The ANU will be much harder hit than UC, firstly because ANU's number of international students actually falls and UC's rises, but also because the ANU is much more dependent on them (40 per cent of the total) compared with UC's 22 per cent.
The ANU declined to comment, referring only to a previous statement: "We are working on the modelling of how these changes could be implemented from next year and the impact on our finances."
UC had not responded to a request for information at the time of writing.
Both universities are in financial difficulty.
At the University of Canberra, jobs and course cuts were being considered and an immediate block on foreign travel was imposed.
It had initially budgeted for going into the red by $26 million this year but that excess of spending over income is now forecast to have jumped to a deficit of $36 million.
UC's plight mirrors that at the Australian National University where the short-fall in revenue to cover spending was nearly $30 million more than it had anticipated. In the face of its climbing deficit, it too has clamped down on spending.
The ANU's short-fall between revenue and running costs was $132 million in 2023 compared with the $105 million it had budgeted for.
In the face of this climbing deficit, it instituted new controls to tighten spending on staff recruitment.
It set up a recruitment approval committee made up of the ANU's most senior officers, including the vice-chancellor, chief financial officer and the "chief people officer".
