Universities to cut hundreds of jobs ahead of proposed international student caps

ABC NEWS (Australia)

More than a thousand jobs could be lost as universities aggressively cut costs ahead of proposed international student caps. Credit ratings agency S&P Global estimates universities will lose several hundred million dollars in revenue.

Transcript

00:00The road ahead for Kit Nelson is looking bumpy, as he's about to be made redundant by the

00:08Australian National University.

00:10I'm not expecting there to be 638 positions available to everybody who's about to lose

00:14a job.

00:15After spending more than it earns, the ANU is facing a $200 million deficit this year.

00:22Everybody's pretty upset, morale's been very low.

00:26Across the nation, more than 1,000 university staff are at risk of being made unemployed,

00:32including up to 300 at the University of Wollongong and 200 at the University of Canberra.

00:39All this ahead of the Albanese government's international student caps.

00:43Effectively, this will limit the number of overseas students that public unis can accept

00:48to 145,000 next year.

00:51We estimate that universities are going to lose several hundred million dollars of revenue

00:54in 2025.

00:56The vice-chancellor of Western Sydney University says it'll be a big hit to his organisation.

01:02It's a loss of about $80 million over three years, and 24 cents in every dollar that an

01:07international student pays, we use to subsidise our domestic students and other programs.

01:12But experts say the aggressive pursuit of international student fees has led to education

01:17standards falling.

01:19I have students who don't attend class because they can get the transcript translated.

01:24I discover repeated attempts of papers that have been written in a foreign language, almost

01:29always Chinese, and simply translated into English using an app.

01:33These aren't occasional occurrences.

01:35This is now the dominant mode of education at some of Australia's most prestigious universities.

01:42That's the cost of running a university like a business.

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