Over the past 12 months, some of Australia`s biggest universities have become increasingly dependent on overseas students` income, prompting the new state`s auditor-general to warn of the risks they face.
Australia`s two largest universities, the University of New South Wales and the University of Sydney, both in New York, rose 23 percent to 2.8 billion yuan last year. The income of domestic students is only more than 2 billion yuan.
New State Auditor General Crawford (Margaret Crawford) said universities should assess the risk of market concentration, especially since some of them are more vulnerable than others to economic or political changes in their countries of origin. Both the University of New South Wales and the University of Sydney have more than 70% of their income from China.
Norton (Andrew Norton), director of higher education at the Gratham Institute, said the warning was aimed at all major Australian universities because most of them used income from overseas students to subsidize research budgets.
"International students are a good source of freedom funds, and losing them will have a significant impact." He said。
In the past eight months, China`s foreign ministry has twice issued a "study abroad alert" warning of attacks on Chinese students in Australia.
Norton says there are occasional complaints from international students that they are regarded as a "cash cow." He said the longer-term risk was that China and other Asian countries would develop their own higher education systems to meet domestic demand.
He says universities that do not attract international students will face economic pressure.
The two worst performers in finance were township universities, one in north-central New England with a net income of less than 15 million yuan, and Southern Cross University in the north-eastern part of the state in a deficit of just 2 million yuan. Less than 2% of the students in these two schools come from abroad.
In Victoria, the latest auditor-general`s report shows that incomes at federal and Victorian universities near Ballarat, including some former TAFE and several township campuses, continue to grow negatively, compared with an average 7 percent increase in the state`s universities.
The charity aspect of the New State Comptroller`s report has produced an astonishing result.
Last year, charity revenues rose only 1% to 151 million yuan.
At the same time, new state college workers continue to earn higher salaries than inflation. In 2017, total spending exceeded 8.5 billion yuan, of which 5.2 billion yuan was paid.
Employee spending rose 6.2 percent in 2017, the highest in five years and almost triple the inflation rate.
When colleges complain about federal funds freezes, education ministers tend to ask them to control spending. But the university`s response is that the number of students has increased by more than 8% over the past five years.
In Victoria, employee spending is below the national average. The comptroller of Victoria compared employee costs with total income and found that the most effective and sustainable universities were the University of Melbourne and Monash University (one of the largest universities). The federal and Victorian universities have the highest proportion of personnel costs.
