International students and university staff concerned about impact of future cap on overseas student numbers

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The federal government has announced the number of international students starting at Australian universities and vocational training providers will be capped at 270,000 from next year.

Transcript

00:00Universities, the latest battleground of a major political stoush.

00:11The overall number of international students starting a course next year will be set at

00:15270,000.

00:16I think that that's not right.

00:20I think it's really concerning.

00:21This is bad policy.

00:23It's bad for Victoria.

00:25The Federal Government's plan to cap Victoria's most lucrative commodity, the international

00:29student, hasn't gone down well in the so-called education state.

00:34Imagine the Australian Government announcing a cap on iron ore exports.

00:38Imagine what an outcry there would be.

00:41Not since Scott Morrison basically told international students to go home could we have come up

00:47with a more fundamentally destructive decision.

00:52The state's richest education institution, Melbourne University, boasts that about a quarter

00:57of its students hold international visas.

00:59I've come here to speak to its Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Global Engagement, Professor Michael Wesley.

01:05Hi, Ross.

01:06Michael.

01:07Good to see you.

01:08Good to see you too.

01:09Professor Michael Wesley, welcome to Stateline.

01:11The Federal Government has announced a cap on New Start international students.

01:15What will that mean for Melbourne University?

01:18Well we're still working through the detail of what it means.

01:22The cap that we've been given takes a little bit of working through.

01:26Will that mean job cuts, perhaps even cuts to entire faculties as a result of this?

01:31Look, very hard to tell at this stage.

01:34Again, we're working through what it all means.

01:36We're doing modelling at the moment, but until we have complete certainty on what that number

01:41means and what it means in terms of our trajectory of finances over the last couple of years,

01:49we're not quite sure.

01:51The Government's rationale for the caps is to make it fairer for smaller universities

01:56in the regions.

01:57These reforms are designed to make it better and fairer and set it up on a more sustainable

02:02footing going forward.

02:04The Education Minister Jason Clare says this is about making it fairer for regional universities.

02:10Isn't that the case?

02:12Isn't the structure of this cap designed to help regional universities?

02:17That's the way it's designed.

02:18I'm not sure it's going to work that way.

02:21Friends that I have who work at regional universities are really in despair because the visa slowdown

02:29that was announced earlier this year has really meant that the number of visas granted to

02:35students wanting to study at Australia's regional universities has plummeted.

02:41That means that it's really destroyed the pipeline of students coming in to those universities.

02:46What that means in practice is that even though they've been given relatively high caps, they

02:52are very pessimistic that they'll actually be able to get anywhere near those caps.

02:59And then there's the question of housing and whether a drop in international students will

03:03result in a rise in inner city housing stock.

03:06Well we really don't know because we don't know what the impact of these numbers will

03:10be on the housing market.

03:13I'm not a specialist on the economics of housing but from what experts that I've been listening

03:18to and talking to have said is that this will have at best an extremely marginal impact

03:26on the availability of accommodation, on the cost of accommodation, on the cost of living.

03:33I have friends from overseas who are already considering going to other destinations which

03:39are slightly more welcoming.

03:41What is the demand like now compared to previous years from international students?

03:47We're seeing real weakening of demand.

03:50I think the uncertainty that's been brought on by the slowing of visa processing, the

03:56increase in the visa application fee to the most expensive fee in the English speaking

04:01world and the prospect of caps has sent enormous uncertainty into international student populations

04:10overseas and it's really made them start to think twice about applying to an Australian

04:16university.

04:18We know how this looks because the Canadians have done this, all of this, 12 months before

04:23we did and the Canadian university system is in real trouble.

04:28The Premier heads to India next week.

04:31Victoria's largest source of international students are from India.

04:35You can understand why I'm proud to be making my first trip as Premier in a few weeks' time

04:40to India.

04:42And her sell may have just become a little harder.

04:45One of the biggest international student markets is of course India.

04:48The Premier is going there at the end of next week.

04:50What do you hope comes from that trip?

04:53It sends a very clear signal that Victoria takes its relationship with India very, very

05:01seriously.

05:03It's important for the education sector because she will be a very senior political leader

05:08from Australia going to India at this time of uncertainty and saying Victoria is still

05:15open for business.

05:17We are still open, we are still welcoming of international students.

05:21We have the largest Indian diaspora population in the world.

05:25We're very welcoming to people of Indian background and people who are Indian citizens.

05:30I think she will be an enormously positive message and signal to send.

05:38For more UN videos visit www.un.org

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