Qld unis face $300m loss if fewer international students return

An over-reliance on overseas students means Queensland universities are now facing a slowly unfolding financial crisis.

Queensland universities could be plunged into financial turmoil and almost $300 million wiped from the local economy if just one in five international students don’t return following the coronavirus pandemic, new research has found.

Analysis from Australian Catholic University’s Omer Yezdani found an over-reliance on overseas students, mainly from China, meant universities were now facing a slowly unfolding financial crisis.

International students generate about $1.4 billion in revenue for universities in Queensland each year.

But just a 20 per cent reduction in international students would wipe $297 million from universities and the Queensland economy and plunge several into “serious financial turmoil” Dr Yezdani found.

That included Central Queensland University, which had 8625 international students in 2019 and stands to take a potential deficit of 6.6 per cent to its bottom line compared to revenue from 2018-19 financial year.

The analysis also found James Cook University, which had 6592 foreign students in 2019, would face a forecast deficit of 1.2 per cent.

University of Queensland’s St Lucia campus

Dr Yezdani said the reality of the potential crisis was really beginning to show.

“As we see the impacts of COVID continue to unfold, we will see them begin to take their toll on the universities,” he said.

“Certainly universities who have higher proportions of international students have more of their revenue coming from international student fees.

“There has been a heavy reliance on a single market, many have revenue streams which are not very diversified, and with that comes risk.”

A spokeswoman for the University of Queensland, which has more than 20,000 international students, said while overseas applications were currently tracking at similar levels to previous years it was likely border uncertainty would result in many to defer or decline their offers.

Dr Yezdani said there was no way to predict how long the impacts of the pandemic could last on international student numbers, but said the ramifications would likely be felt by the major educational institutions for many years.

“The impact is going to be quite extended,” he said.

“One of the things with higher education is the change in student enrolments tends to happen slowly ­– they tend to increase slowly, and decrease slowly, because the life cycle of the product is quite long.

“It means any downturn takes a really long time to recover.”

Originally published as Qld unis face $300m loss if fewer international students return