University of NSW’s 10-year plan built on international influx

UNSW tried to wring more out of the international student boom than any other university.

University of NSW vice-chancellor Ian Jacobs. Picture: Kym Smith

UNSW tried to wring more out of the international student boom than any other university, making the biggest play for international students in the last few years than any other in the Group of Eight.

Most of them were high-paying students from China, and on the back of this vein of gold vice-chancellor Ian Jacobs aspired to build one of the world’s great research universities.

Jacobs arrived in 2015 and by 2018 revenue from international students had nearly doubled to an annual $712m. The 2019 figure hasn’t been published but it would have been substantially higher. Other Group of Eight universities, particularly Sydney and Monash, were also aggressively growing their student numbers, but none as much as UNSW.

So it is not surprising that with COVID-19 travel bans now devastating the international student business, UNSW is projecting the biggest job cuts so far of any Australian university.

Jacobs is an ambitious leader. When he arrived at UNSW from the University of Manchester, where he was dean of medicine, he quickly developed a 10-year strategy to lift the university into the top 50 in the world. Judged by his preferred measure — an average of three major rankings — the university moved from 72nd to 55th this year.

Just before the impact of COVID became clear Jacobs was musing that UNSW could hit the top 30. Now, the foundations have crumbled.

The push by UNSW to join the global elite research institutions is a dream beyond reach.