Canterbury University is pleading for at least another $150 million from the Government as it faces losing almost 20,000 students and $346m in revenue in the next eight years.

The university is facing unprecedented challenges after the February earthquake caused it to lose hundreds of domestic and international students, and saw millions of dollars worth of damage to its buildings.

A 65-page document detailing the business case for support asks the Government for $130m in operating support, $25m for capital costs and a yet-to-be-determined sum for building remediation not covered by insurance, but the amount could be between $20m and $70m.

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Acting vice-chancellor Ian Town said if the university did not get the support it needed there was a risk it would go into decline which would be a bad outcome for the region and its recovery.

Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce received the report last month and yesterday would not commit to giving the university any additional support.

The Government would give careful consideration, but "the total quantum of support that may be required has not yet been defined, nor have all the options been canvassed yet", he said.

"I think there is further work to ensure any decisions regarding additional support for UC will help strengthen the long-term strategic position of the university."

The university had a good reputation and it had a strong balance sheet with about $90m in cash reserves, Joyce said.

Town said the university would continue talks with the Government and he hoped to hear the outcome of the appeal in the first quarter of next year.

In exchange for the government money, the university was proposing to make savings of $134m, double its borrowings to $100m, and reduce its capital expenditure by $20m to $45m annually from next year to 2019.

The savings would include a 3 to 4 per cent reduction in staff numbers for each of the next three years. The university has about 3000 staff.

The university has already asked staff to consider taking voluntary redundancy to try to minimise compulsory redundancies.

"We believe we need to do everything conceivable to help ourselves," Town said.

The extra money would be used to mitigate the reduction of staff, maintain the essential investment needed to be a world-class teaching and research institution, the report said.

The business case, developed by university staff and accounting company Deloitte, forecasts a cumulative drop in fulltime equivalent students of 19,400 from this year to 2019 and a reduction in revenue over that time of $346m.

About 15,500 fulltime equivalent students are enrolled at the university.

It already has 1200 fewer domestic students and 420 international students than 2010. Of those about 800 were first-year students and 80 per cent of them would have continued to a second year of study.

More than 25 per cent of the first-year student intake either discontinued or did not complete their enrolment this year.

Town said the university had started many initiatives to attract students, including increasing recreational areas on site. It was also spending millions of dollars on additional scholarships.

Vice-Chancellor Rod Carr was visiting several countries to get the message across to potential international students that the university was fully open and safe after the earthquakes.

About 75 out of 84 buildings have reopened and two (the Mushroom and the Siemon buildings) were being demolished.

The report also included the estimated cost of repairing a long list of buildings and in most cases insurance only covers half the repair cost.