For the second-year ever the United States has more than one million international students at its universities and colleges, with a record 1.08 internationals there now. This sounds a lot, but not really, compared to the 730 000 students from overseas enrolled in Australia’s much smaller education system in September. New Australian government figures announced today show 30 per cent of them come from China, with second-place India providing 11 per cent. There are some 56 000 Chinese students at Australian universities.

To help keep international education growing the feds will publish guidelines today for $3m split into $250 000 grants, “to deliver big picture projects that develop Australia’s role as a global leader in education, training and research.”   The Department of Education and Training says the sort of projects it will support include; sector strategies, research that fills critical sector-wide knowledge and data gaps, and  “innovative or new modes of delivery.” But if there are conferences you want to go to, forget it. (Details here ).

As for the US, this might be as good as it will get for a while. A learned reader reports US figures also show a 3 per cent drop in commencements.