Australian universities reject international student diversity

Australian universities have rejected a push by the federal government for more diversity in international students intakes, likening it to ‘racial profiling’:

The government late last year raised the possibility of a diversity index, which would force universities to publicly disclose the country of origin of their international students to “improve transparency of diversity”.

Then Education Minister Alan Tudge announced it as a key aspect of the 10-year strategy for international education, with the hope of reducing “financial risk” for universities and improving the student experience on campus.

It followed figures showing Australia had a bigger portion of Chinese students than the US and UK, with almost 40 per cent of our student cohort from China and about 20 per cent from India.

“We want to see our international student market flourish again, but we have to ensure the Australian student experience is also prioritised,” Mr Tudge said at the time. “This means that our public universities need to have a higher priority on diversity in their classrooms”…

But in a submission to a government discussion paper seen by The Australian, the Go8 said it rejected the idea of a diversity index.

“Noting that achieving diversification is likely to be, at least, a medium- (if not long-) term strategy, it is also critical to ensure that Chinese and Indian students do not interpret such an index as indicating they are no longer welcome in Australia,” Go8 chief Vicki Thompson said in the submission. “A loss of these two large student cohorts would not only impact higher education and research, but is likely to impact the broader bilateral relationships with these countries and exacerbate skills and capability needs across Australian industry. Some members have also expressed concerns that the publication of a Diversification Index could be ­interpreted as an attempt at racial profiling.”

It’s funny how ‘diversity’ is pushed down our throats in almost every walk of life, yet our universities refuse to have ‘diversity’ when it comes to international student enrollments.

Associate Professor Salvatore Babones’ new book, entitled entitled “Australia’s Universities: Can They Reform?”, tackles the student diversity issue in detail and shows that Australia’s concentration of international students is extreme, dwarfing other advanced nations:

Australia’s international students tend to be much more ‘foreign’ than those in other countries. In the United Kingdom, roughly 30% of international students come from European Union countries. In Germany and France the situation is similar. Many of Russia’s international students come from former Soviet republics. Australia’s, by contrast, tend to come from culturally dissimilar countries in East, South, and Southeast Asia…

Australia’s concentration of international students per capita is nearly three times that of the UK and six times that of the US. Australia also has by far the most unbalanced flow of international students in the world…

The bulk of Australia’s international students also come from just three nations: China, India and Nepal.

This extreme concentration is unambiguously reducing the experience of domestic students, according to Babones:

In some courses, the numbers of international students hosted by Australian universities have reached such epic proportions that English is no longer the most widely-spoken native language in the classroom. In postgraduate coursework degrees in business at Sydney, Melbourne, and Queensland, more than 80% of the students are international…

Chinese postgraduate students at Australian business schools routinely complain that they have few opportunities to practice English. The concentration of Chinese and other international students in most other programs is not that extreme, but it is still extraordinary by international standards. Seven of the 8 largest Chinese universities outside China are in Australia…

One of the key recommendation of Salvatore Babones’ book is to place caps on international student numbers of 20% per course, 15% per university, and 10% from any one country.

While this recommendation is entirely sensible, it will be rejected outright by the universities because it would lower international student numbers and revenues.

Our greedy universities care more about international student dollars than the educational quality and experience delivered to Australians, which should be their primary focus.