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Overseas Students - I am staggered

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WinnieBlues

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I am staggered that our education system, designed for educating young australians, is being turned into a degree factory to pump out degrees for foreigners in this country...

who voted for this?????

A massive 547000 overseas students (not a misprint) are currently in australia studying for degrees

And i thought that our unis were set up to educate young aussies...how naive of me!!!! As a recent graduate you only have to look at the consequences...crowded lecture theatres and tutes, fighting for access to computer pools and library resources etc etc...

china, singapore etc etc wouldn't be this stupid to sacrifice the education of the next generation for a quick buck to be made from foreign students

its high time that we start to get out priorities right....australian unis primary concern should be educating young aussies, NOT overseas students ...it seems that the pollies and uni establishment have got it the wrong way around
 
Mr J said:
For better or worse, education is a business.
Click to expand...
Yes and big business they pay between $15000 & $20000 dollars each p/year, that is + living cost, if they then choose to apply for permanent resident they pay another $800 for each time they go for the english test and only about 25% pass, I believe (do not know) in Sydney the numbers that go for the test each month is beyond 5000 .
 

so what...we shouldn't be selling our degrees in this way at any price!!!! 560000 students...my god, that is the size of Hobart...and its happening very quietly...if Australians truly knew, they would be up in arms about this

there is also a COST to australia.......more international students in overcrowded lecture theatres, crowded computer pools.......we should be prioritising the education for young aussies, not foreign nationals

and because it is now a business it has been abused.....and what a joke that is
 
So have you done a full cost:benefit analysis of this WB?

They pump a hell of a lot of money into the economy, which is a good thing. While i agree that lots of tutes and lectures are crowded, i would be interested to know what % figure of total tertiary students are from overseas.

Who exactly are you outraged at? The students? The uni's? The governments? Seems a bit of a directionless, overly patriotic, rant to me
 

Don't be too quick to point fingers. Crowded lecture theatres is caused by too many students or too small a space. It is not caused specifically by too many international students.

Where did you read about Aussie students couldn't get a proper education they want because of foreign students?

What percent of university funding comes from international student fees? What would the facilities be like if those fees are not there? How high would uni fees (and hence debt after graduation) be for the local students if the international students stop coming?

Where have you seen research that suggest international student doesn't generate economic benefits to Australia overall?

Show some facts. Otherwise it just sound like uninformed xenophobic rant.
 
WinnieBlues said:
so what...we shouldn't be selling our degrees in this way at any price!!!! 560000 students...my god, that is the size of Hobart...and its happening very quietly...if Australians truly knew, they would be up in arms about this
Click to expand...
560000 students times $15000 = a lot of money added to the aussie economy every year and that is just in school fees.
 

Overly patriotic rant...what, to suppose that aust unis should be educating australians....

like i said, there would be no way singapore or china would be compromising the education of their next generation for a few bucks...

as a recent graduate from an aust uni, i can tell you that it some of my friends tutes (such as accounting tutes) full of 30 students, she is one of only 2 local students in a class of 30, with the rest being int students...

that this has to be debated that it is wrong for the future of aust tells me that we have sold our education to the highest bidder, and most don't give a stuff about educating the next generation of australians - they would rather focus on educating foreigners who have the cash to come here!!!!! Oh dear
 

So instead of debating it we should say "yes WB sir, whatever you say"??

I am at uni at the moment, in 2 business degrees, and would estimate about a 50/50 split, however that is based on nothing but my own guess, i have no actual figures. And as SKC says where would our uni's be without them? They may even be worse off, depending on gov funding. Who exactly are you angry at?

You can go to a uni in China or whatever country you want, if you so choose and meet their requirements.

**puts mod hat on**
Instead of trolling and being aggressive, why not debate it logically and provide facts and figures?

ASF is for robust discussion, not one sided rants. As you are a new member i suggest you read the posting guidelines
**removes hat**
 

560,000 international students, each spending approx 35,000 in student fees and living expenses is $19,600,000,000 injection into the Australian economy each year.. I don't see any problems with that. And consider the number of universities in Australia... there are about 40 or so, so thats only 14,000 per university. Most universities have greater than 30,000.. so they make up less than half of the uni students.

I would say its a benefit more than a cost. They pay larger fees allowing the universities to produce better infrastructure, pay for better lecturers and so on... as Australia's population is so small, we can't possibly sustain the number of universities we have no without international students.
 
Whats more there is now no restriction on property they buy so , financed by their famiies, they buy whatever they like, hence a large contributor to the housing bubble, this is an excellent way for foreigners to buy into Australia.

Too bad about the young Aussie's they cant compete with the cheque books of these people.
 
here's a novel idea...instead of our esteemed unis having to grovel to overseas students to fund themselves, why doesn't uncle kev actually put some money into them....

maybe he could have put some the money he wasted through sending $2000 cheques in the form of 'stimulus' to dead people??? LOL


agree prawn, this needs debate...and we don't have enough regarding this

the govt has chronically underfunded our unis for ages...and now they have to go grovelling to make up for it
 
I half agree with what is being said. Im more than happy for as many foreign students to be educated in Australia. However, it should not be at the cost of local students.

Universities give preferential treatment for full fee paying students. They are short on cash so ofcourse will do whatever is necessary to charge more fees.
As a basic example, the cut off UAI mark (or what ever it is called in your state) will be about 5 points lower for a full fee paying student over a HECS student.

Note that full fee paying students are not just overseas students. This also includes kids with rich parents who can buy a spot.

The university placement system has been replaced from the tertiary ranking to the new $ system. Both systems work like an auction.

In one system your highest bid that you can make is your entrance mark, in the new system your highest bid is whatever your daddy can afford.

With most foreign students your bid is whatever loan size you can get.

I would like to see as many foreign students come to Australia, only after all the local tax payers have had their positions filled. We would then auction off the remaining spots.

The problem is, there are no remaining spots. Its not uncommon to have 500 people in the one lecture room.

The solution isnt to limit the amount of foreign students, we should be increasing capacity.

Limiting the amount of foreign students is akin to not expanding the newcastle coal terminal.

WinnieBlue, define young aussie for us please. Most university students are not your typical beach blonde 18 year old. Most are asian and a high perecentage are mature age students.

Another reason why uni's are overcrowded is that we just dont have enough academics to teach these courses. How do we get more academics? by increasing the number of people who get a degree.
 
WinnieBlues said:
china, singapore etc etc wouldn't be this stupid to sacrifice the education of the next generation for a quick buck to be made from foreign students
:
Click to expand...

reckon they would

theres a price on everyones backside in the global economy
 
How much of the reasoning here fact and how much is presumtion?

Four Corners earlier this year had a story on it. Very interesting. It pointed out how this is a major part of the economy. There is probably a little bit of ego in it too. As a leader I would love the idea that international students want to come to my country to be educated. That can then lead to boasting about how the top level education is quality.

560,000 and Hobart? That is the total population of Tasmania.

Someone, somewhere needs to pay.

To turn the debate around a little - why are medical degrees so limited in number? Seems we can pump out lawyers and accountants but put a cap on doctors so we need to bring in foreign doctors. Then we have the various health departments around the country competing with each other for what is available. This can drive up pay for doctors and adds a burden to the health costs.

Perhaps the university system/degrees could be reviewed to see what is really needed.
 
Agree with overcrowded lecture theatres and tuts. But whose fault is that? The student enrolling or the University deciding Oh an extra $20,000 won't hurt.. What? You have a friend? Is he paying? Why of course there's an extra spot! Welcome to ___ university!

To be fair, not many people go to lecs anyway
 
How bad is the traffic in Sydney? Imagine how much better the roads would be if there were no tourists or foreigners. Australian roads are for Australians!


In all seriousness, University's are established to provide education. Putting the funding and fee issues aside for the moment, Uni's are a better place for including international students. Like it or not, Australia participates in a global market (that includes Asia) and for most of us that means interacting with people from different countries and cultures. This is not something you just 'do', it's both an attitude and a skill that is only learned through exposure and application.

Australia punches above it's weight economically and politically not just because our proximity to Asia, but Australia's ability to engage the region and bridge the gap between East and West. This has clear benefits you can see right now - no recession and low unemployment in the middle of a global recession and a strong AUD.

There are areas to improve, but in general, Australia's education system is doing the country reasonably proud. For me, the thing we need to improve next is sending more students the other way and give more young Australians the experience of living and learning in Asia, North America and Europe.
 

They've removed the full fee paying option already for many courses and isnt the play to remove it completely so its purely based on academics for local students and not how much money you have. And I don't see how its a cost to local students.. they're clearly paying their way for their education. There is no cost to us..
 
Under which rock have you been living lately?

Education is our 3rd biggest export worth $15bn annually.

It's the largest growing of Australia's exports in monetary terms and probabbly the sole reason this country never officialy had 2 negative quaters of GDP in the last couple years.

If you dont already know Australia is part of Asia and if you walk out in the streets of Sydney, Melbourne Brisbane and Adelaide you'll see that there is a huge growth of international students.

These are the facts and also the future direction of this country so embrase with your arms wide open mate. and throw another shrimp on the barbie..crickey
 
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