ohne said:
What is wrong with attracting foreign students? In my opinion the problem with the University system at the moment is that there is too much governmen intervention.
It might shock the middle clases, but I would put things like higher education on a commercial footing. Universities should charge what they like in what is now a world market. If they continue to struggle under the yoke of penny-pinching politicians, they’ve had it. I would let them charge full fees but require them to set up endowment funds so the poorest students had equal access: choose on merit, help on need.
There is nothing wrong with foreign students attending our unis, but the problem is that their standard can vary a lot, and thats where the whole issue is about. Education should never be treat as commerical matter because it is not. Education is the most important thing, along with health of the country. Without either one of them, the country will not be competitable to other countries.
The Howard government always say there aren't enough experts in Australia and we need to import more and more professionals from other countries, yet more and more Year 12 miss out their uni slot because there isn't enough fundings for local and uni relies on foreign students who may not even have the standard of Year 12. Yet because they come from a wealthy family, they can get into our uni, as a result, some of local Year 12 studnets miss out.
The uni funding for local students should never decrease at the first place. Education is one of the most important funding/investments out of all. Poor eudcated people ==> lower standard of the country. Spending money on education is far better for the country than sending troops to another country fighting for someone else, or provide fundings for private schools. The HECS should reduce by at least a half, if not free.
Brandon Nelson is full of shit, everyone knows the funding of universities dropped a lot since the Howard government came in. If his accusation of poor managements of universities, then why is it more than one uni reports the same problems? They can't be all have poor managements? That just shows education was never the Liberal government's priority.
International students are great people for our uni, don't get me wrong. But it is a problem when it effects local studnet to get into unis and having local students pay the HECS which increases every year. International students can help us to explore and understand different cultures, at least we won't shock ourselves when we enter employments, as long as their standard is same as local students.