Economist and management consultant John Howard has called for Australia’s universities to be prudentially regulated in the same manner that applies to authorised deposit-taking institutions, insurance and superannuation funds in order to prevent “risky excesses”:
Dr Howard said that universities’ accounts and operations should be scrutinised by a body like the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (Apra), which supervises banking, insurance and superannuation organisations.
And like listed corporations, universities should be obliged to report quarterly. “They’re big businesses; something that escapes a lot of people’s attention,” said Dr Howard, a visiting professor at the University of Technology Sydney.
