Australia’s universities are warning that the crash in international student enrolments could drag into the second semester:
There are new threats to the $38 billion international student market as university staff are barred from travelling to overseas recruitment fairs, putting stress on projected earnings for the second half of the calendar year, according to the Global Reputation Taskforce for higher education….
The chair of the taskforce, Phil Honeywood, said… university staff were not able to start overseas recruitment drives for the second semester which meant there was uncertainty over how many students would enrol for the remaining part of 2020.
“Depending on when the pandemic peaks, not just in Australia but other countries, we could find second semester intake is severely compromised”.
Estimates of the hit to university revenue and downstream employers so far in 2020 range between $1.2 billion and $3 billion.
The chief executive of the Group of Eight universities… [said] “We are suffering significant financial loss which will have an impact on the broader economy and will detract from GDP growth”.
Earlier this week it was revealed that the travel bans meant that “about 85,000 Chinese international students enrolled in Australian universities remain overseas”, whereas there are also 1,810 South Korean and 451 Italian students that are due to start first semester but are currently stranded outside of Australia.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, international students generated $37 billion of economic activity in 2019, with $16 billion coming directly via tuition fees:
Therefore, Australia’s universities are facing multi-billion dollar fee losses from the coronavirus, which could rise significantly if second semester enrolments are negatively impacted.
