Universities forced to face addiction to foreign students’ money
I work at a University in Australia and have been on both sides of academic and professional. This unravelling was on the horizon for everybody, maybe not so soon, but definitely in the viewport. In an effort to drive up income streams there has been a slow erosion of Australian education (more at some universities than others) to cater for the international (Chinese and Indian predominantly) market. There are all sort of perverse incentives built in to erode educational benefits, hand hold students, make university 'fun', something that used to be part of the student body's remit, but having crushed that movement it is now where a lot of money is being spent at many universities. Not on academics, not on labs, but on comfort, edtech, busy work and asinine initiatives underpinned by endless erroneous reporting by consultants to make execs feel like they are 'doing good'. I know - it is hard not to sound bitter, but it is a tragedy of short sightedness. The recruitment of students is predatory and eventually the saturation of subpar graduates from these university degrees would have eventually resulted in the fading of both cultural and brand name prestige of sending your kids to Australia for study. This is also tied to cheap international student labour, housing that pockets the inner cities that nobody who isn't a trapped rich international would live in and a segregation of the university student community that is unhelpful.