Australia faces major losses from its $38 billion export revenue higher education sector unless the government and university leaders can resolve a diabolical problem created by the Melbourne lockdown and the need to further curb what is already just a trickle of foreign arrivals at airports across the country.
And with all international flights to Melbourne suspended, plans to allow at least a small number of foreign students to return to Victoria have been put on hold.
But with major problems exposed in the Victorian quarantine system for incoming travellers, and other states warning their systems were struggling, the federal government is moving to cut down on inbound international travel — which at the moment is almost entirely Australians returning from overseas.
Whether bound for Melbourne institutions or elsewhere, foreign students at this point are a distant second in policymakers’ minds given the nature of the Victorian outbreak.
University leaders are warning that foreign students may be permanently lost to higher education systems elsewhere in the world — and there was already evidence that tensions with China, as well as other factors such as racist attacks, were deterring Chinese students from considering Australia.
Handily, the Trump administration also seems keen on deterring foreign students in the United States — prompting exactly the same warnings from US educators about the impact on demand for a US degree.
But universities in the UK — where borders remain open — remain potent competitors: they offer lower tuition fees and, like Australia, students can apply to work after they complete their study and can access the NHS, though that is offset by a higher cost of living, much greater travel distance for students from Asian countries, and the weather.
The government, sensibly, is considering extending the post-study work visa to students who remain at home studying with Australian institutions online — a de facto recognition that much of the attractiveness of an Australian degree is in the path it offers to working here.
But the core problem remains Australia’s closed borders and an inability to handle large numbers of exemptions requiring quarantine. Before the pandemic, Melbourne alone hosted more than 200,000 foreign students, which gives an indication of the kind of volume of movement any meaningful fix will entail.
For now universities can only offer online tuition, which is a partial fix but doesn’t address the significant secondary economic impacts of an extra several hundred thousand people needing infrastructure, accommodation, food and basic services.
For a government deeply resistant to providing any kind of support for universities, it’s a vexing problem that may have serious long-term impacts on one of our biggest export industries.
It’s a huge issue. Those in the sector are saying that universities will look very different from now on. There is very little prospect of the govt coming to any rescue. While some govt complaints have merit, others point out that govt policy forced them down this path, and that also has merit.
At my former employer, the local shops will take a big hit, so many of them catering to the high proportion of Asian students’ tastes. Some of them will go bust, property owners may struggle to fill any holes with local foot traffic visibly diminished. All up, the flow on effects will run for 12 to 18 months, likely.
The $40B input to local communities and universities is real money attracted from overseas. It is significant.
As for helping the sector, greater investment in research by govt is not wasted money. A smart govt would see it as an investment, particularly in the STEM subjects, but the LNP often can’t work out the difference between an investment and a cost. I wouldn’t hold my breath. I was among the first of many that will leave the sector.
‘The LNP often can’t work out the difference between an investment and a cost’. That’s unfortunately is an accurate statement. The govt doesn’t understand that the 2nd or 3rd largest export earner is an important sector that needs to be nurtured and needs decent investment to flourish into the future, instead they keep cutting its funding (cost) and forcing it to depend on foreign students who take their skills back home. I am not sure where the govt members got their university education from, but they certainly are unable to think critically about this countries future well-being. Where is their vision for Australia’s education sector ? I don’t think they know what a ‘vision’ is. Its time for a change.
“ the LNP often can’t work out the difference between an investment and a cost.”
Oh so true, good one DB.
The answer is to focus on the core purpose of universities, and that is to educate and contribute to the body of knowledge.
The solution is to restore full government funding to enable Australian students to study at Australian universities. The international student cohort can be the cherry on top which provides additional value (cultural, social, intellectual… as well as economic) to the sector and to Australian society more generally, rather than being the primary funder of what must, at the heart of its function, provide quality under-graduate and post-graduate education and research capacity for the benefit of Australia and Australians long into the future. Universities must return to their purpose of educating and learning, rather then running as businesses for accountants and managers… and profit.
I wholeheartedly agree. Australian universities are now just about money; nothing to do with intellectual capacity. Too many foreign students use their studying here as an immigration ticket. Some get their assignments done by providers online and hardly speak English. How is this good for Australian universities? I believe that since our universities have come to rely on foreign students they have diminished in quality. I’ve been studying for 20 years and I watch in disbelief.
The Tudger on Insiders yesterday was unashamedly (sic!?) proclaiming that “studentism” was a priority path to citizenship.
16% of student permanent residency applications come under the annual permanent migration cap, with other independent offshore/onshore applicants for skilled streams, family reunion, refugees etc..
Citizenship is another step altogether after permanent residency, including qualifying time period and amongst other things, doing the Australian citizenship test…….
Permanent migration is less than than post WWII levels (proportionally) but many Australians have been misled by media, MPs and commentators focusing upon (undefined) ‘population growth’, into deeming all students and other temporary residents counted in the NOM net overseas migration, as ‘immigrants’ when many have no plans to stay permanently, nor can they…..
I would not have thought that 16% of international students becoming permanent residents is ‘too many’:
‘A much smaller share of those arriving as international students eventually transition to permanent residence (Figure 19). Of the 1.6 million individuals examined between 2000-01 and 2013-14, 16 per cent eventually transitioned to permanent residence.’ (page 21)
Commonwealth of Australia (2018: 21) Shaping a nation. Population growth and immigration over time.
The universities will have to discontinue the high-risk activity of marketing education to foreign students and educate Australian students. The government will have to help the universities and other sections of the economy to adapt to a new world where there will be little movement of people between countries.
Australian universities educate as many Australian students as they are funded for. The current conservative government capped funding for domestic students.
Quite. Funding must be restored.
A likely outcome of this situation will be our broke unis being sold off cheaply to China. This has already begun to a certain extent, with at least one Australian university entering into a partnership arrangement with a Chinese university. More will inevitably follow.
Almost all Australian universities are owned by the State or federal governments, which will not sell them.
Several Australian and other universities have joint ventures in China, India, and elsewhere.
They’ve sold off almost all our other most valuable public assets. Why not our universities?
It’s very hard to safely dismount from a tiger (or dragon).
Thanks to John “Artless Dodger” Dawkins (HECs) & other class traitors in the neolib Keating/Hawke government so many aspects of Life, as it was once lived and enjoyed in this country, have been sold for a mess of pottage.
Whether it is depending on sin taxes from alcohol, gambling or tobacco or education as an export, as spruiked by bright sparks with well stuffed carpet bags ready to skip at a moment’s notice, it always going to end in disaster.
And who pays to pick up the pieces, ie repair the Budget ‘holes’?
NOT those who profitted but hoi polloi.