University chiefs behave like greedy CEOs

I argued last week that Australia’s universities had turned into greedy profit-maximising corporations.

To cut a long story short, the federal government and Australian universities devised a framework to encourage huge volumes of full fee paying overseas students by:

1. The Australian government offered the carrot of generous student visa work opportunities and permanent residency chances.
2. Australian universities cratered entry and teaching standards.

The financial windfall from ballooning international student numbers was invested in research aimed solely at propelling Australian universities up the global rankings, rather than into areas that actually helped Australians.