Crunch is on to get uni back in the black

Perhaps none more so than ANU vice-chancellor Ian Young, who became obsessed with the ANU balance sheet soon after taking over two years ago and has not stopped scrutinising the spreadsheets since.

This year's horror federal budget for all Australian universities - which have had to cop an efficiency dividend on top of a flat $2.3 billion cut to help pay for the Gonski education reforms - may well have taken years off his life.

To his credit, Monday's massive financial restructure spreads the pain and shows a spirit of consultation sadly missing from his earlier attempts at fiscal rectitude.

There was outrage last April when he announced a seemingly arbitrary $40 million budget cut with 150 jobs to go. So vehement was reaction that six weeks later he pulled back. The School of Music budget cuts came soon after and it seemed a bloody war over a rather paltry $1.8 million.

But this time there was no choice.

Every university is struggling to cover their losses under a Labor government that has promised an ''education revolution'' but has gouged more from the tertiary system than any conservative government.

Professor Young has played a smart strategy, asking his ANU community to nominate areas for savings. It is no surprise administration, energy use, and travel have come up over and over again on the ''Budget Solutions'' website.

And it's never hard for any university to expand its student intake, inch up international student fees and charge more for parking - all basic steps from ''The Dummies' Guide to Cutting Uni Overheads''.

There's no disputing the biggest losers are staff - who will lose support workers, see their student load increase and have to come to grips with the new financial processes while simultaneously taking three years' of accrued leave all at once.

But there are hints of genuine community spirit in the budget package, including a pair of 2 per cent pay rises across the next 12 months for staff while the enterprise agreement gets negotiated. The executive will donate its 2 per cent straight back to the university while Professor Young will give $50,000 of his salary to the university in a gesture of goodwill.

Even the pot plants in the chancellery - costing all of $4300 a year but a source of some consternation to frugal students - are gone as of Wednesday.

If all goes to plan, the ANU will be $6 million in the black by 2015.