The international students bubble bursts

A bubble it was. It’s a clear imbalance when foreign kiddies made up a third of some suburbs, via The Conversation:

International students made up more than 30% of the population in some Australian suburbs, before borders closed to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

The Mitchell Institute mapped where international students lived using data from the ABS census and Department of Home Affairs.

The results show striking growth in capital cities, and in some regional areas.

The mapping highlights how international students have become intertwined in Australia’s social fabric. Not only do they contribute A$38 billion to the economy annually and support 130,000 jobs (at any one time), they are also important members of local communities.

The Mitchell Institute research helps illustrate how, beyond universities’ suffering at the loss of international students, local businesses and communities are also being negatively affected.

Let’s face it. This was never about exports in the national interest. It wasn’t about soft power. It wasn’t even about education. It was about feeding a population-ponzi machine run by greedy university vice-chancellors, developers, banks and retailers. It crushed per capita output and wages for the wider community for an entire business cycle. Grew another leg in the property bubble. And crush-loaded everything in sight.

These were not bugs in the system, they were features of it, as a handful of education robber barons prospered at the expense of everyone else’s standards of living.

Now the bubble is bursting. Via the AFR:

The University of New South Wales will lay off 493 staff, cut management by 25 per cent and reduce the number of its faculties from eight to six as it grapples with a COVID-19-related revenue collapse of about three-quarters of a billion dollars.

“Some of the steps are unpalatable and painful, particularly when they have an impact on jobs and our people,” said UNSW vice-chancellor, Ian Jacobs.

The vice-chancellor, Ian Jacobs, said a voluntary redundancy program for academic and non-academic staff would begin immediately. It would become compulsory “if necessary” to make sure the reductions were in place by October.

The job losses represent a staff reduction of 7.5 per cent and were being made only after “all other options had been exhausted” including drawing down $115 million in reserves.

Good. But don’t be mistaken that this is the only “option”. All universities have become little more than travel agents to populate their own huge property developments. It’s simply easier to cut headcount than it is to sell assets.

They might as well. These disgraceful bubble businesses spent all their ill-gotten gains on bloating administration not teaching staff anyway:

Chop away!

Let’s not forget how damaging the bubble was even to the universities themselves. Pedagogical standards deteriorated to joke status as illiterate foreign students became the lowest common denominator for teachers. Local students were turned into effective tutors via group study to hide hapless foreigners. Grading was corrupted. Cheating became a huge business.

What’s the point of universities at all if they lose their drive for excellence? That’s their only reason for being. You know, “higher” education.

And we’ve yet to touch on the Chinese angle. The surge in enrolments was driven largely by a wave of Chinese takeover, clearly orchestrated, that led to the entrenchment of propaganda organs within campuses. How could Australia watch on as pro-democracy protests were crushed by CCP gangs at UQ?

I remember when Høj laughed in my face during a Senate meeting back in February, mocking my inability to stop him reapproving a deal with the Confucius Institute. Maybe no more laughs now? Congrats Pete, you’re starring on prime time national television with Sixty Minutes! pic.twitter.com/AYzVmOzqgy

— Drew Pavlou 柏乐志 (@DrewPavlou) July 15, 2020

This plan involved the occupation of entire student political structures within the universities as the incubator for the longer-run target of occupying Canberra. According to Associate Professor Salvatore Babones, 11% of total Australian university enrolments in 2017 were Chinese students and this concentration worsened in the two years to 2019, given the 23% surge in Chinese students at Australia’s universities over that period:

This was a far higher ethnic concentration than anywhere else in the world.

Today we can happily report that the CCP have seen their takeover plan fail and have now pulled the flow, ironically using the label “racist” to unravel the trade. Chinese students will not be back because their major role was not learning but a white-collar insurgency (knowingly or not) designed to drive Australia under the skirts of the CCP.

That does not mean the disgraced sector will not try again. Throughout the pandemic it has operated like a cancer attached to policy, constantly aiming to undo travel bans, smuggling students, lobbying for more virus, in an extraordinarily clear and present threat to the wellbeing of the Australian community.

How? Why? Because policy-corruption is also part of the sector’s modus operandi, driven by a swathe of public servant mandarins turned private profiteering oligarchs. The ranks of vice-chancellors and their staff have come to resemble the same revolving door of policymakers that used to afflict the finance sector. Former MPs and ministers plus senior public servants have turned their taxpayer-funded career expertise into rivers of gold in universities, then blown that back into public policy in a classic case of regulatory capture.

That’s why you won’t see a dramatic and severe royal commission to flush out the poison, bring justice to the corrupt, nor clarify the first principle role of these institutions within our society. As badly as it is needed, the corruption is too deep. Much worse than banks ever were. Permeating the racist Left, government and property-corrupted media. The clean-up job has been left to fringe dwellers, spies and one fantastically brave UQ shit-stirrer.

And, finally, the sector has met its match in the virus. Plans to revive the inflows have been abandoned owing to quarantine failures. They’ll keep trying but the longer we stay shut the more market share we’ll lose to other nations. Good riddance.

The international student bubble is bursting, will continue to do so for years yet, and not before time. Expect those sectors that inflated with it to also deflate: property prices and development, banks and retail.

Good. All of those involved are a bloody disgrace.