Domestic students are being held back and international students aren’t getting what they need, says one expert. Universities know this. Why aren’t they doing more?
Already a subscriber?Sydney University politics student Chloe Linstrom doesn’t go to most of her lectures because she has to work three days a week.
Dr Sarah Walsh, a history lecturer at the University of Melbourne, which currently has no campus bar, says her students enter and leave campus with a “ruthless efficiency”, while 38-year-old American postgrad Cody Rodriguez describes it as a “commuter school”. Interestingly, international students are less satisfied overall than domestic students – a worrying finding given their fees are many multiples of what domestic student pay.Sydney University has added the equivalent of an ANU to its sandstone campus since 2016, with its international student population rising from 10,000 that year to more than 31,400 in 2023, as the total cohort rose from 50,000 to 70,000.
“But we need a proper consultation period to determine genuine and evidence-based solutions. We cannot be cavalier or indifferent to the vital success story we have built over the past 20 years.” “Lots of Chinese students in my time couldn’t speak English properly, but they were accepted anyway. Then they really struggled with their studies and there was no help, no community, and they’re just used for tuition fees.”Andrew Dodd, director of Melbourne University’s Centre for Advancing Journalism, says the faculty last year noticed a serious decline in English proficiency among international students, who he estimated made up 70 per cent of the cohort.
“These are complex questions. At heart, it’s not anyone’s fault. It’s a model of funding that relies on international students, and what must never happen is that the students are scapegoated … because these are really decent and hardworking people,” Dodd says. He adds that, for Chinese students looking to study abroad in Australia, university rankings are an important consideration. Earlier this month, Melbourne University retained its perch as Australia’s best, rising one place to 13th overall in the QS World University Rankings. Sydney University climbed one spot to number 18, with UNSW at 19, the ANU rising four places to 30, Monash University up five spots to 37, and Queensland University at 40.
However, rents and rising cost-of-living pressures are increasingly shaping the university experience of Australian students. The 23-year-old, who works three days a week at a trade union, says while she experienced only a few months of pre-lockdown-era university, campus life has deteriorated.“People aren’t that interested in engaging with classmates or forming new friendships. It’s like the opposite of sunk cost fallacy,” Donnelly tells“We all had to isolate for so long during the pandemic, and now people view that social interaction as an investment of time that might not pay off.
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