January 29, 2021
Are universities over-reliant on China?
The IRU has published a new briefing assessing the often-used claim that Australian universities are overly reliant on Chinese international students as a revenue stream.
“In 2019, 133,000 Chinese international students studied at universities in Australia, making up 13% of all enrolments. In monetary terms, China is the biggest international student market for Australia, representing 31% of its international education ‘exports’ in 2019.”
– IRU briefing on education exports to China
The IRU has analysed Australian trade figures to break down the proportion of goods exports to China, for education and other key sectors.
The analysis finds that many industries considered essential to our economy depend on China at a much higher rate than education – yet do not attract anything like the same level of rhetoric and concern.
