Over the last six years, Australia’s universities gorged themselves on tuition fees from international students, which rose to an extraordinary $12 billion in 2019, up 140% from $5.0 billion in 2013:
This extreme fee growth came via two channels.
First, the number of international students enrolled at Australia’s universities exploded to 440,000 in 2019, up 92% from 2013:
Second, university tuition fees have soared. For example, research by Jerry Zheng revealed that international tuition fees (17.88%) at the University of Melbourne rose 3.5 times faster than inflation (5.17%), and 2.6 times faster than domestic tuition fees (6.76%) between 2015 and 2019:
It is fair to say that Australia’s universities comprehensively wasted the bounty milked from international students.
The salaries of university vice chancellors and their executives have soared to astronomical levels:
Universities have also blown many billions of dollars on “shiny new buildings with immaculate landscaping”, many of which are “filled with well-paid staff doing a range of activities, with many focused on recruiting and servicing international students”.
With this background in mind, it is galling to hear Australia’s universities continuing to cry poor and demanding taxpayers bail them out and provide the international students that they have ruthlessly milked with welfare:
The Regional Universities Network (RUN), which has three Queensland institutions amongst its membership, has welcomed various elements of the Federal Government’s assistance package.
But executive director Dr Caroline Perkins said more could be done, particularly in supporting international students who have lost their part-time jobs, or providing funding to universities for that lost revenue stream.
“It’s a very difficult time. Few international students were able to make it to Australia for first semester and we’re expecting even lower numbers to start second semester,” Dr Perkins said…
JCU Vice-Chancellor Professor Sandra Harding was critical of the Federal Government’s failure to include them [international students] in its assistance packages…
“We need governments to step up and recognise how important these students are to Australia and to our cultural vitality, as well as to our economics,” Professor Harding said…
Professor Harding fears harm has been done to Australia’s reputation as an international education provider which could ultimately impact the nation financially.
“International students who feel they’re not being looked after at a time of their great need may choose not to return,” she said.
“It’s not good business for Australia to not be seen to be supporting international students at this time.”
Clearly our universities have never heard of the term ‘moral hazard’ or the notion of risk management. After privatising the financial gains from the international student bubble, and making out like bandits, our greedy universities are now demanding that taxpayers socialise their losses.
No way. The concentration of international students at Australian universities reached obscene levels that dwarfed all other developed nations:
And this has come via trashing university entry and teaching standards, as noted on last year’s Four Corners “Cash Cows” report and by Judith Sloan this week:
Domestic students deserve better than they have been offered in recent years.
Standards need to improve. And there should be no more contrived group assignments where local students carry international students. Universities can also ditch those low-quality coursework masters’ degrees targeted at international students.
Denying the universities taxpayer support is the only way to incinerate the moral hazard and the Chinese Communist Party influences in these organisations.
They need to be traumatised and scarred with regard to their reliance on international students. They must be made to know that the price of selling out Australia is not worth paying. And they must return to their primary function of educating Australians, not behaving as blood-sucking corporations selling dumbed-down degrees for maximum profit.
