Uni leaders united on need to reduce reliance on Chinese student market, as Hong Kong protests continue
China and Hong Kong are the biggest and equal third student markets in SA – and our university chancellors say that over-reliance is a risk in this time of geopolitical instability.
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Clashes between students from Hong Kong and mainland China highlight the risk of over-reliance on the Chinese market for universities “addicted” to foreign income, vice-chancellors say.
The warning came as the State Government launched its international educational strategy, setting goals of nearly doubling enrolments to 71,000 and related jobs to 23,500, and growing revenue from $1.8 billion to $3 billion by 2030.
Mainland China is SA’s biggest student market at 40 per cent and Hong Kong is equal third on 5 per cent.
UniSA vice-chancellor David Lloyd said all three SA universities had grown foreign student numbers significantly in the past year, but “the risk is around overexposure to a single market” in the midst of a global trade war and geopolitical instability.
“One in three of our (international) students are from mainland China,” he told a Committee for Economic Development of Australia forum yesterday.
“If you go to Melbourne or Sydney it can be one in two, or maybe higher again. That reliance on a single source of income is a risk.”
Prof Lloyd said the protest between Hong Kong and mainland Chinese students on Friday was the first rally on UniSA grounds in seven years.
It was “symptomatic of the delicate balance” unis had to find between cultural diversity and competing ideologies, and “the practical reality of market reliance”, he said. Adelaide University vice-chancellor Peter Rathjen blamed the federal funding model for making unis “addicted” to foreign student revenue.
Yet truly “global” unis had high proportions of foreign students and they greatly enlivened the CBD.
“The big challenge is to diversify away from China,” he said. “We are financially dependent on their undergraduate students but we don’t talk enough about the other one: About 50 per cent of our PhD students now come from China and we’re desperately dependent on them as a nation for the research workforce”.
Flinders University vice-chancellor Colin Stirling said an even “bigger risk” in the medium term was competition from China’s own booming university sector that had more than doubled in size over the past decade, attracting more of its own students as well as foreign ones.
The State Government’s plan includes increased marketing, a culinary school on the old RAH site, and a possible “international student hub”.
It is banking on SA’s favourable visa conditions compared to other states for attracting students.
The vocational sector is expected to grow fastest.