Global ratings agency S&P Global warns that planned international student enrolment caps will negatively impact Australian university rankings and research funding.
“A government proposal to cap foreign enrolments could hit Australian universities hard. This is because the country’s university sector is among the most dependent in the world on international student revenue”, S&P Global said.
“If enacted, the legislation would crimp operating margins, choking funding for research and halting the advance of Australian tertiary institutions up global rankings”.
My response to S&P Global’s warning is: so what? The whole international education system is a “Ponzi Scheme”.
Australia’s universities have easily the highest concentration of international students globally, which they have leveraged to increase research funding and university rankings.
The federal government and Australian universities established a structure to attract large numbers of full-fee-paying overseas students through two channels.
First, the Australian government offered the world’s most generous student visa work rights and a high probability of gaining permanent residency.
Second, Australian universities lowered admission and pedagogical standards to entice more foreign students.
The financial windfall generated by increased international student numbers was then channelled into research to propel Australia’s universities up global rankings rather than areas that helped Australians.
Because a higher global ranking boosts a university’s reputation and signals quality, universities use these rankings as a marketing tool to increase international student enrolment while justifying higher tuition fees.
Last year, the university rankings farce was exposed when Australia’s universities stormed up the QS 2024 World University Rankings due to a methodological change that lowered the importance of “the ratio of the number of academics to students”.
Australian universities ranked poorly on this measure because of their large class sizes. Therefore, they benefited from the methodological change.
The Australian’s Tim Dodd explained the impact as follows:
“What a gift it was two weeks ago when, instead of universities having to go to the QS rankings, the QS rankings came to them.
A major change in methodology led to most Australian universities rising, some dramatically so, and three universities – Melbourne, Sydney and UNSW – vaulting into the world’s top 20″.
“A key reason behind Australian universities’ rise in the QS rankings was the QS decision to reduce the weighting on faculty to student ratio from 20% to 10%. (Faculty is the US term for an academic member of staff.)
This measure (intended as a proxy for quality of teaching) is one in which Australian universities perform badly because of their large class sizes”.
“Ironically, it’s the reduced weighting on a poor outcome which was a major factor in Australian universities’ ranking boost”.
Adding to the farce, the Times Higher Education World University Rankings also give extra points for the proportion of international students enrolled. Therefore, having more international students equals a higher ranking (other things equal).
What a fabulous Ponzi Scheme for Australia’s universities: 1) Bring in massive volumes of international students. 2) Pump tuition fees into research. 3) Achieve a high ranking. 4) Use the high rankings to canvass for more international students. 5) Rinse and repeat.
Meanwhile, the boom in international students has corresponded with a sharp deterioration in teaching quality, with the student-to-academic staff ratio rising dramatically.
International student cheating is common. Chinese influence is widespread. And universities’ casualised staff are underpaid and pressured to pass low-performing international students.
Domestic students have also been made to effectively tutor non-English speaking students via group assignments.
Local students have been paired with international students, frequently resulting in domestic students doing the majority of the work, thereby cross-subsidising international student grades.
In short, the entire international education industry has deteriorated into an immigration racket, with universities acting as migration agents rather than educators.
Australian university vice chancellors have been rewarded with million-dollar salaries for successfully transforming their institutions into low-quality, high-volume migration agencies focused on maximum throughput and profitability.
And despite behaving like profit-maximising corporations, Australia’s universities are deemed non-profit entities and do not pay tax.
Ultimately, Australia’s educational institutions must exist to serve the needs of Australian students, not international students. The learning experience of local students must be prioritised.
So what if international student caps have a negative impact on Australian university rankings and research funding? They would deliver a better experience for domestic students.
