News & Views item - September 2005

 

 

Australian Universities Increasing Dependence on Fees from Overseas Students Leaves Them Open to Increasing Financial Instability. (September 14, 2005)

    Brendan O'Keefe in today's Australian quotes data from Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade that the Nation's universities host more international students than any other country in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development on a share of total enrolments -- in fact in 2002, 18% of Australian higher education students were from overseas. That's just under twice the nearest countries, Britain, Germany and France, whose enrolments were about 10%.

 

Between 1998 and 2002 the proportion of international students climbed from about 12.5% to 18% but over the past year there have been disquieting signs of the beginning of a downward trend in funds obtainable from international sources.

 

From 1994 through 2002 the number of international student enrolments in Australian universities increased from 35,290 to 151,798. 78% were from Asia and according to the DFAT report

fees from Chinese students accounted for $900 million in Australia's $5.9 billion education services industry while Malaysian students spent $300million on fees last year.

 

Previously TFW has reported on the increasing competition posed by the growing power of Asian universities and the consequent reduction of potential revenue from that student sector. But the DFAT report also underlines the potential the large dependence on foreign student fees can have on distorting university curricula. According to O'Keefe, "The top fields of study for international students in Australia between 2002 and 2004 were: business and management (about 58,000 students); information technology (25,000); arts, humanities and social science (12,000); and engineering and surveying (13,000)."

 

The reduction of full-time staff in mathematics and the enabling sciences together with the increase in staffing in departments catering for business and management is a response to this "customer pressure"; quite understandable, and detrimental to the midterm and long term wellbeing of the nation as it becomes less able to base its economy on raw material exports and more reliant on what must needs be a knowledge-based economy.