Dependency on University Tuition Revenue from Overseas Students Rears Its Head Once More. (January 6, 2006)

    Figures divulged through Senate Estimates indicate that university revenue derived from international students increased 142% between 1999 and 2004. Over $1.9 billion came from overseas students in 2004.

According to The Age "The expansion in Australia's tertiary education sector has been almost exclusively in the area of enrolments by overseas students, who now account for a fifth of the student population — double the rate 10 years ago."

Figures obtained from the Department of Education, Science and Training reveal that six Australian universities relied on overseas student fees for more than 20% of their income in 2003 -- Macquarie, UTS, Wollongong, RMIT, Central Queensland and Curtin.

National Tertiary Education Union policy and research officer Paul Kniest says, "How sustainable that growth in international students is is very questionable... One of the factors that has helped Australia attract overseas students is that it is a relatively cheap place to live; if Australia were to continue to be relatively successful economically, the exchange rate would appreciate, which would make Australia less competitive on a price basis it's a very real concern. Universities are becoming very dependent on overseas students as a source of income and if that source dried up they would be in pretty serious trouble."

Commenting on the figures, Labor's spokeswomen for education and science, Jenny Macklin said, that the latest OECD report showed Australia was the only developed nation to reduce public investment in tertiary education since 1995. In response a spokesman for Education, Science and Training Minister Brendan Nelson accused the Opposition of being "predictably hypocritical. The Labor Party voted against the Government reform package, which will actually deliver an additional $11 billion investment in additional funding over the next 10 years." Which doesn't really appear to rebut the point that Australia really has been the only OECD nation to reduce public investment in tertiary education since 1995."

And with all the finger pointing no one has made what remains one of the most salient and worrisome features of the federal government's ultimate solution to what it sees as the tertiary education problem --

P r i v a t i s a t i o n

January 4, 2006 Letter to the Editor of the San Jose Mercury which had reprinted Prof Garland's opinion piece