International Students

It is fair to say that one of the biggest beneficiaries of the long boom in international student fees was Australian university vice-chancellors.

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”.

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.

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.

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.

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.

International students have accounted for around 25% of Australian universities’ revenue in recent years.

China’s trade war on itself via Australia has steadily worsened over the past year.

For years MB has questioned the odious links between our universities over-reliance on international student fees and university rankings.

Former Victorian Premier turned chancellor of Victoria University and chair of the International Education Advisory Council of Victoria, John Brumby, has penned a long-winded opinion piece in Fairfax defending the extreme concentration of international students at Australian universities and calling for policy makers to reinvigorate the industry.

Beijing continues to deliver the Australian national interest ahead of the Australian Government.

Mark Lucas, the chairman of the peak lobby for education agents working in Australia called the International Students Education Agents Association (ISEAA), has called on the Morrison Government to “reinstate the link between international students and immigration” to reinvigorate the edu-migration industry.

Yesterday afternoon I was interviewed by Liam Bartlett from Radio 6PR Perth about the “corrupted stinking edifice” of Australia’s international student trade.

Dr Peter Hurley from the Mitchell Institute estimates the number of international students in Melbourne’s CBD has fallen by 8,900 because of the pandemic.

The CCP trade war on Australia is such a wonderful development I don’t know where to look half of the time.

Private schools have joined lobbying efforts to open Australia’s international border to international students.

Scaremongering over the ‘collapse’ in international student numbers continues to ramp up with the edu-migration lobby now warning that Australia will lose market share to the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States unless we quickly open our international border to students.

Readers will recall that for well over a year, the University of Queensland (UQ) was plunged into local and international infamy by its inappropriate relationship with the local Confucius Institute and Chinese Consulate.

UNSW’s outgoing vice-chancellor, Ian Jacobs, has “no regrets” about a five-year binge on international students that saw the university’s budget expand by 40%.