Beware the Obsession to Acquire Resources in Order to Achieve Lofty Goals, if Only We Could Remember Them. (January 12, 2011)

It was an admonishment by Gavin Brown in his valedictory on retiring from the vice-chancellorship of Sydney University on July 10, 2008. Professor Brown (68) died of a heart attack in Adelaide on December 25, 2010. Max Bennett, professor of neuroscience and founding director of the Brain and Mind Institute at the University of Sydney has written his obituary for today's Australian.

Whether or not Professor Brown saw the effect of the increasing reliance on international student fees as a corrupting influence on the goals of scholarship and research on Australia's universities is a matter of conjecture, but there is now evidence that overall revenue derived from student fees is about to take a king hit.

According to The Australian's Andrew Trounson "the Immigration Department is forecasting student arrivals under its measure of net overseas migration to more than halve from 134,700 in March last year to just 64,500 by June 2014, and Tony Pollock, chief executive of international student recruiter IDP "expects a 20 per cent fall in commencements this year, noting that student starts across IDP's network for the first semester were down about 17 per cent. He said a recovery was probably at least two years away".

However, Mr Trounson reports that data from Australian Education International show that year-to-November commencements show higher education commencements were up by 2.4 per cent at 90,310 students.

All of which drives university planners to a state of fibrillation and reduces universities' contribution to the nation's public good -- one of those lofty goals to which Professor Brown may have been alluding?