Waikato University shifted all its teaching online at the end of March.

A drying up of revenue from international students could force a major re-think on how the country's universities are funded.

With no date set for the reopening of New Zealand's borders, higher education providers face a serious funding shortfall with about 20 per cent of universities' funds sourced from international students.

"We've had 20 years of governments taking the view that if they gave the universities a little bit less, then the universities could manage by getting more international students," Waikato University Vice-Chancellor Professor Neil Quigley told Stuff.

"If that implicit deal was to be taken off the table, then it would require a really significant look at the funding model for universities."

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Waikato University has about 10,000 full-time equivalent students enrolled, including about 1250 onshore international students.

"There is a chance that the border will remain closed to international students for quite a long period of time," Quigley said.

CHRISTEL YARDLEY/STUFF Waikato University Vice-Chancellor Professor Neil Quigley.

"If that happened, and we couldn't bring in any new international student enrolments over the next 12 to 15 months, then we would be looking for the next year at the universities having 20 per cent less revenue than they've had last year, let's say, which is a huge hole to fill."

As of March 30, Waikato University shifted all its teaching online following the country's move to Covid-19 Alert Level 4 lockdown.

To aid the shift, university staff have phoned 2496 students so far to check if they need additional support with their learning. About 115 chromebooks have been loaned to students to help them continue their studies.

The university has also been talking to internet providers in an effort to help students with no internet connection.

About two per cent of students have been identified as being at-risk of disengaging with their studies, compared to an average of four per cent in other years.

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"Disengagement will be lower this year than it was in the past, interestingly, just because we've put so much effort and got so many people out their phoning," Quigley said.

To compensate for Covid-19-related challenges, PhD and doctoral students have been given up to a three month extension to their studies. For the majority of students, the university year is expected to pan out as expected.

"Some of the other universities have had to do big shifts in their academic year to get it all organised. We think we are on track to do things pretty much on the same schedule we anticipated," Quigley said.

"Despite all the adversity and the fact that people are having to work so hard, staff are really energised and motivated and morale is actually quite high which shows the great feature of human nature that, given a challenge like this, people get to it."

Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Alister Jones is responsible for Waikato University's Covid-19 business continuity planning. He said the university's teaching partnerships in China made it aware of the significance of the coronavirus from an early stage.

The university teaches and awards three of its degrees in China.

CHRISTEL YARDLEY/STUFF Waikato University Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Alister Jones.

"We never saw [Covid-19] being just limited to China. We thought this could have major implications," Jones said.

"Because we were getting information coming out of China, it allowed us to prepare for what might happen here."

Quigley said the coronavirus pandemic is the biggest challenge he's faced as a university leader due to the scale of changes needed to address it.

The success of having staff work from home has been a major positive to take out of the past few weeks.

"I think this sort of crisis has opened our eyes to the possibility that would have required more courage to try in normal times. Having had to try it now, and seeing that it can be made to work, hopefully it will embolden us to think about alternative ways of doing things in the future."