“this creates not only a concentration risk for each university, but for the NSW university sector as a whole”
Universities Australia is pleased indeed with national figures on earnings from international students. “Exports underpin Australia’s economy, and education is the biggest one we don’t dig out of the ground,” UA’s Catriona Jackson says.
Education is certainly up there with iron ore in economic significance and according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, international students here are now at 94 per cent of pre-Covid.
Problem was, then, and is now, we relied on a big customer for both. In the March quarter China provided 22 per cent of students, that’s 127 000.
‘Twas ever, at least in recent years, thus.
According to the NSW Auditor General, in 2021 China was the biggest source of international students for seven of the state’s ten public universities and it accounted for 80 per cent of export ed revenue at market leaders, the universities of NSW and Sydney.
“This creates not only a concentration risk for each university, but for the NSW university sector as a whole,” the NSWAG warned (CMM June 28 2022).
The risk continued last year, in part because Covid caught Chinese students at home, where they stayed studying with Aus providers and in 2022 seven out of the ten public universities, recorded China “as the leading source of overseas student revenues.”
“This creates not only a concentration risk for each university, but for the NSW university sector as a whole,” NSWAG warned last week.
So what, if anything, is to be done Former education minister Alan Tudge was keen on diversifying country and product markets and extra-interested in off-shore delivery (CMM March 31 2021). But growth offshore takes time, demonstrated by the years it has taken Deakin U and Uni Wollongong to get small-campus starts in India.
Perhaps government will make changes for universities – The Australian reports, “caps on international student numbers are being canvassed” as part of the Accord – which could make for interesting discussions for the trade minister if officials in Beijing decided their students were being quota-ed out.
The obvious response to such is that the market will sort it out in the long-run. NSWAG might differ.