MB has comprehensively debunked Australia’s claimed $40 billion of education exports, which are wildly exaggerated. In a nutshell, the majority of education ‘exports’ comes in the form of expenditure on goods and services in Australia, as explicitly acknowledged in a recent Mitchell Institute report: The majority of the $20 billion loss of economic value is
The Australian’s Judith Sloan has penned a terrific article explaining why the “Tidal wave of overseas students must stop”. Sloan claims that senior administrators at Australia’s universities are relentless rent-seekers and will take every opportunity to lobby the federal government to open the nation’s international borders to foreign students. Instead, Sloan insists that any decision
IDP Education CEO Andrew Barkla has told the Universities Australia conference that the federal government needs to provide a clear message on when and how Australia’s borders will open. Barkla said Australia was losing international student market share to other countries because it does not have a clear plan at this stage. He said that
The South Australian Government has lodged a plan with the federal government to let 160 international students at a time quarantine in separate quarantine facilities at Parafield Airport: The government claims the international student arrivals would not impact the quota for returning Australians, which will continue to be housed in cramped city medi-hotels: South Australian
Denis Blight – former CEO of international education placement organisation, IDP Education Limited, and a visitor in the History Department of the Australian National University – has penned a self-serving article in The Australian calling for policy makers to “increase and sustain” international student enrolments. The main arguments of the article are as follows: International
In February, Beijing identified the collapse of Australian pedagogical standards driven by international students: The Chinese Ministry of Education (CME) complained that Aussie universities are delivering sub-standard courses in China JVs. According to CME, universities have under-invested and failed to deliver quality Australian staff numbers. An audit of the courses was forthcoming. The Chinese courses
MB has long argued that the higher education sector’s lust for international students has damaged pedagogical standards, eroding the quality of education and experience for local students. Our claim is evidenced by the following observations: The dramatic rise in the number of students to academic staff at Australia’s universities; and Domestic students being forced into
A new survey shows that nearly three quarters (73%) of Australians believe that Australia’s international border should remain largely closed until at least mid-2022, or until the pandemic is under control globally: Yet, with tens-of-thousands of Australian citizens remaining stranded abroad, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that the return of international students was now the
The CCP trade war on Australia is a sight to behold. It has already delivered Australia a reinvigorated ANZUS, and iron ore led income boom, and the very accelerated export decoupling that we desperately needed but couldn’t do owing to CCP’s corruption of local politicians and businesses. In February, Beijing identified the collapse of Australian
Stephen Clibborn and Chris F. Wright from the University of Sydney have attacked Josh Frydenberg’s decision to uncap international students’ work hours across hospitality and tourism, claiming that it will create a “guest worker state” that will push wages and working conditions lower: Our research shows it [the decision] is consistent with a troubling 25-year
As we know, the Morrison Government recently announced its desire to lift immigration back to pre-COVID levels in order to overcome purported ‘labour shortages’. Specifically, the Government’s Interim Report of the Inquiry into Australia’s Skilled Migration Program recommended opening the migrant floodgates via: Abolishing labour market testing requirements. Lowering costs and speeding up approval times for
Data from the federal government, reported in The Australian, shows only 79,000 international students began courses in Australia during the first two months of 2021, compared with 127,000 during the same period in 2020. English language colleges that feed the universities have been hardest hit, with enrolments down 69% year-on-year, whereas the nation’s universities have
The Australian’s higher education shill, Tim Dodd, has penned another article lamenting the loss of international student ‘exports’, which are tipped to halve according to new data from the Mitchell Institute: Australia’s highly successful education export business, worth over $40bn in 2019, will see its value halved by the end of next year unless international
For years, MB has argued that the higher education sector’s lust for international students has damaged pedagogical standards, eroding the quality of education and experience for domestic students. Our claim is evidenced by the following observations: The dramatic rise in the number of students to academic staff at Australia’s universities; and Domestic students being forced
Professor Greg Craven, who recently retired as the Vice Chancellor of Australian Catholic University, has slammed the higher education sector’s rabid pursuit of international students, which he claims was done “for the grubbiest reasons”: “[Universities’] job is not like corporations’, just to make money. Ours is to multiply social capital”… “But we really got into
Late last year, university chancellors ordered a review into its peak lobby group – Universities Australia (UA) – because of its lack of success in influencing the Morrison Government. The review comes after the sector failed in its attempts to gain access to pandemic financial support payments such as JobKeeper… [and failed to] secure backing
The Australian’s higher education shill, Tim Dodd, has penned an article bemoaning that Australia faces a third year without a large scale return international students, labelling it “unthinkable” and a “crisis”. According to Dodd: Every month without the large scale return of international students puts at risk Australia’s $40 billion export industry, badly impacting not
The Victorian Government’s revised hotel quarantine program resumed yesterday after being paused for five months last year following the destructive second wave outbreak and again from mid-February after virus again leaked into the community prompting another hard lockdown. Thus, after being closed for roughly half the time since its inception in late March 2020 after
The Mitchell Institute for Education and Health Policy at Victoria University has undertaken analysis for Fairfax, which forecasts that the number of international students studying in Australia will more than halve by January 2022 from pre-pandemic levels: The Mitchell Institute argues that this reduction in student numbers will have a devastating impact on university finances
Education Minister Alan Tudge has told The Age that the success of the federal government’s COVID-19 vaccination rollout will determine when international students are able to return to Australia. He says it is unlikely that foreign students will be allowed to return in large numbers until 2022, although universities may be able to enrol limited numbers
Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, we have witnessed Australia’s universities warn of financial catastrophe from the collapse of international students. We also saw universities cry foul after they were denied the JobKeeper wage subsidy. Fast forward to today and it appears the universities were crying wolf, with many posting healthy surpluses. Earlier this
It is fair to say that one of the biggest beneficiaries of the long boom in international student fees was Australian university vice-chancellors. From 2013 to 2019, aggregate fees from international students soared 133%, from $6.8 billion to $15.9 billion: Vice-chancellor remuneration also ballooned, with vice-chancellors earning well over $1 million on average in 2019,
Anyone doubting that Australia’s international education industry is a backdoor immigration scam or that education ‘exports’ are wildly exaggerated only needs to read yesterday’s article published in Fairfax, entitled “Private colleges pay student recruiters up to $300,000 in bonuses”. According to this report, private colleges are paying local education agents thousands of dollars in commissions
For years we have argued that Australia’s international education industry is really an immigration scam, whereby migrants effectively purchase access to work and live in Australia by studying at an Australian institution. The immigration scam has been developed jointly by the federal government and education industry via: The federal government offering the most generous work
Last year, the former vice-chancellor of Macquarie University, Professor Steven Schwartz, admitted that many international students only study in Australia to gain working rights and permanent residency: [Professor Schwartz] said foreign students flock to courses likely to lead to jobs and permanent residency… “Permanent residency is one of the main motivations to study in Australia’…
For years the education industry and state governments have talked up the immense value of international student exports, which the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) claims was worth $37.3 billion in 2019. These exports comprised: 1) $15.9 billion of tuition fees; and 2) $21.4 billion of goods & services expenditure, as illustrated in the next
Late last year, the NSW Government lodged a plan to use one third of its 3,000 hotel quarantine places to import international students, with universities (read taxpayers) to pick up the cost of quarantine. The plan was later abandoned after the state was hit with the New Year COVID outbreak, as well as backlash from
MB has regularly argued that our universities’ rabid pursuit of international student fees has damaged entry and teaching standards, eroding the quality of education provided to domestic students. This claim is evidenced by: The dramatic increase in the number of students to academic staff; Domestic students being forced into group assignments with non-English speaking foreign
Earlier this week, the chief lobbyist for the international education industry, Phil Honeywood, called on the federal government to run charter flights and separate quarantine facilities to bring international students into the country: “There’s no reason why we can’t have charter flights bringing the students in, walking them across the tarmac into separate quarantine facilities
Melanie Macfarlane, founding member of the International Student Education Agents Association and member of the Migration Institute of Australia, has penned an article highlighting how the international education industry is the key feeder of the ‘Big Australia’ mass immigration policy. Macfarlane basically admits that Australia’s international education industry has only grown so big because studying
