Enrolment caps ‘imperil universities’ viability’, says opposition

Australia’s opposition has urged the government to “rethink” its legislation to limit international enrolments, ahead of a report from a Senate committee scrutinising the bill.

Former immigration minister Alex Hawke said the Liberal-National party coalition had “reserved our position” on the legislation pending publication of the committee’s report on 15 August. “We want to know a lot more about the impact of this bill,” he told the federal parliament.

He said the proposals gave the education minister “too much arbitrary power” to deal with problems better addressed in the immigration rather than the education portfolio. “This bill…won’t fix anybody’s housing or rental crisis,” he said.

“Most students come here for an education and the vast bulk…have a good experience in Australia, and we have a good experience with them.”

He echoed universities’ “grave concerns” that the proposed caps could threaten their viability by disrupting a vital income stream. “The government has no intention of replacing that money,” he said. “It couldn’t possibly, in 100 years of trying raise enough tax.”

Mr Hawke also stressed international students’ value to the workforce. “A lot of Australians don’t want to work in kitchens anymore. It’s done by international students. They’re…doing a lot of heavy lifting in a lot of sectors [where] we cannot get people to fill these roles.”

As immigration minister in the former coalition government, Mr Hawke helped fuel a record influx of students – and a subsequent crackdown by the current Labor government, amid opposition criticism of its “mismanagement” of immigration – by removing the 40-hour fortnightly limit on their paid work during term time.

“There are more jobs now available in Australia than before the Covid-19 pandemic,” Mr Hawke told foreign students in a February 2022 media release. “So come on down.”

Education insiders fear that their sector could fare worse under a coalition government than the Labor incumbents, after opposition leader Peter Dutton also vowed to cap international student numbers and to cut immigration more steeply than Labor.

Meanwhile, education minister Jason Clare has refuted a media report that the government intends to impose a blanket 40 per cent limit on the foreign share of each institution’s enrolments and to reset international student numbers to 2019 levels.

“That’s wrong,” he told the ABC, adding that he would provide universities and colleges with “indicative caps” on their overseas enrolments this month. “Universities [are] advertising; encouraging people to enrol,” he said. “They want to know that number as soon as possible.”

He said universities’ foreign enrolments were now about 10 per cent higher than before the pandemic.

Testimony provided to the Senate committee suggests that some institutions’ international student numbers are significantly above pre-pandemic levels. The 33,000 overseas students expected at the University of Melbourne this year is about 15 per cent higher than its published 2019 figure.

The University of Adelaide has approximately 11 per cent more foreign students than in 2019, according to estimates provided to the committee, while Charles Darwin University’s numbers are up 77 per cent.

But senators also heard estimates that overseas enrolments are down around 4 per cent at the Australian National University, 7 per cent at the University of South Australia and 60 per cent at the University of Tasmania, compared with pre-pandemic levels. Monash and Queensland universities also indicated that they were tracking below their 2019 figures.

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com