CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
Australia’s sandstone universities say they are at risk of going broke, after all the smart people that run them realise that higher education institutions have accidentally become 100% dependent on the fees paid by international students.
Overseas student visa applications has plunged dramatically following pandemic travel bans, with experts expecting the downturn to impact Australian universities for several years.
The latest figures from the Department of Home Affairs, which cover the 2019-20 financial year up until 31 May, have overall applications trending well short of previous years.
Visa requests from mainland China, the biggest source of international students for Australian universities, has almost completely fallen off, after their Chinese government warned their youth against coming to Australia to study because Prime Minister Morrison could not refrain from regurgiating President Trump’s ‘China Virus’ rhetoric, which they claim was resulting in racist attacks on their citizens who were based in Australia.
Applications from India are down 47 percent, while Nepal’s student visa requests have slumped by 61 per cent.
In response to this, Australia’s universities have today made the desperate plea for a stimulus package of 250,000 sons and daughters of Chinese billionaires who pay triple to attend university in Australia.
“Australia is used to hosting almost 350,000 Chinese students in some capacity across Australia” says Shane Tronc, Dean of Betoota’s Western Queensland University.
“Not just at the sandstone ones, but in those weird little ones that you see in Chinatown that are basically just shopfronts for some Tasmania uni haha”
“Basically we need at least 250,000 of these kids in their Supreme and Balenciaga kit”
“That’s the only way I see us coming out the other side of this”
The government has not indicated whether or not they will be able to provide the universities with even a Foxtel-sized bail out at this point.
They have, however, taken the opportunity to use the education sector’s financial black hole as a chance to restructure university fees – in a new proposal to slug a 40% increase on any degrees that teach young Australians how to apply critical thought.
Senator Jaqui Lambie has said these new fees will be signed off over her dead body.
MORE TO COME.
