Australia faces tough contest with US for Asian students

SEAN GALLAGHER
July 14, 2010 in SMH.

The worst global recession in 75 years is delivering a cruel blow to Australian universities. For years America’s leading public universities have quietly watched Australia’s success in educating thousands of full-fee paying Asian students, especially from China. Now forced to find new sources of income, these great institutions are rapidly moving to adopt the Australian university business model.

Australian universities are facing the challenge of competing for Asia’s best students against global brands such as Berkeley and UCLA. After two decades of practically unrivalled access, Australian universities need to review their comparative advantage against this new and formidable competition.

Australia’s Appeal Waning, says Overseas Agents

8 July 2010

By John Morgan – Times Higher Education

International recruiters in China are “fed up” with the Australian government’s attitude to immigration and are directing students to the US and UK instead, according to an Australian agent.

John Findley said Australia was becoming less popular because of the exchange rate, high tuition fees, less attractive commissions for agents and the greater ease of securing visas to the US and UK. He told The Australian newspaper: “All agents (in China) are fed up with our current government’s attitude to migration.”

Unions to Fight Private Firm’s Push into Uni’s

Paul Bibby June 8, 2010

THE National Tertiary Education Union is gearing up for a court battle to try to halt the march of a big multinational private education company into Australian universities.

In recent years, the union has fought repeatedly, but unsuccessfully, with education company Navitas, which has signed contracts with seven Australian universities, including Macquarie and La Trobe.

Funding gap to hit ANU’s global university rankings

Bernard Lane June 05, 2010 The Australian

THE highly rated Australian National University is likely to fall in global university rankings as China and Europe pour more money into higher education, its outgoing vice-chancellor, Ian Chubb, has warned.

Professor Chubb, who announced his retirement yesterday after a decade at ANU, Australia’s top-ranked university, said it would not be long before a clutch of elite Chinese universities made the global top 20 or 30.

China and India back Online

Guy Healy, June 02, 2010, The Australian

UNIVERSITIES have renewed formal ties with China and India – Australia’s top two export education markets – as latest figures show higher education continuing to hold up the embattled $17 billion market.

In the space of less than two months, Universities Australia has signed new high-level agreements with its counterparts in China and India aimed at deepening staff and student exchange and research links.

Inbound Student Market Falters

Andrew Trounson June 01, 2010, The Australian

AUSTRALIA’S international student market has gone into reverse with government figures showing commencements slumping 3.3 per in the four months to the end of April on the back of steep falls in the English language sector last month.

While international student commencements at universities continue to grow — they are up 9 per cent so far this year — English language schools are a key feeder for universities and the sector is now braced for a drop in demand.

Overseas Students Plummet

Andrew Trounson May 28, 2010, The Australian

INTERNATIONAL student enrolments could drop by as much as 20 per cent next year, costing the economy up to $2 billion, as a consequence of the Rudd government’s “abrupt” tightening of immigration requirements and rising competition from North America and Britain for the lucrative student trade.

Opening up our campuses

GARY NEWMAN, May 24, 2010, The Age

Why does the university sector need to expand?

The Bradley review revealed that Australia is losing ground to the world’s knowledge-based economies. The proportion of Australians aged 25-34 with degrees rose from 29 per cent to 34 per cent between 2006 and 2009, but this was mostly due to skilled migration. Canberra has introduced “student-centred funding” to stimulate growth.

What is “student-centred” funding?

Universities Fight Back at devalued ‘drive through education’

HEATH GILMORE HIGHER EDUCATION Sydney Morning Herald

May 15, 2010

With a little antipodean cheekiness, the University of New England is appropriating the Oxford experience of gowned academics and students tootling around on bicycles.

The trial of the free electric bikes, due to start next month, is part of a strategy to revive the traditional university experience. ”What I call the ‘massification’ of education is becoming quite alienating,” the university’s vice-chancellor, Jim Barber, said.

”The mere acquisition of a qualification and a job ticket is devaluing higher education. It drains university of the time for students to reflect, the time to discuss, the time to interact and, most importantly, the time to be formed as a person. The UNE has to differentiate itself from that.”

Marked Surge in Domestic Students

HEATH GILMORE, April 29, 2010, Sydney Morning Herald

A NUMBER of universities are increasing their intake of domestic students at rates never seen before in the higher education sector.

The University of Western Sydney has exceeded the federal government’s cap on students it is allowed to enroll in its courses by a record 15 per cent this year. That figure may reach nearly 20 per cent depending on the university’s midyear intake.

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