AUSTRALIA: Concern over reliance on foreign fees

The reliance on international students to keep universities afloat has been given an emphatic thumbs down in a survey of the general public about attitudes towards higher education, writes Jill Rowbotham for The Australian.

More than three-quarters of people polled by UMR Research for the National Tertiary Education Union said the federal government was "too reliant on overseas fee-paying students to fund Australia's universities". The 1,700 respondents to the February online poll were evenly split over whether educating students from other countries was an important role, with 46% agreeing and 48% disagreeing.

University of New South Wales pro vice-chancellor (international), Jennie Lang, said she was heartened by the roughly even split in public opinion over the importance of educating students from other countries. "As a sector we have to get better at articulating the benefits of having a student mix," she said.
Full report on The Australian site