Our universities - something wicked their way comes

Even though more than one million Australians and international students are enrolled in higher education and TAFE courses, the sector is rightfully worried about its future.

Large falls in enrolments of Chinese and Indian students will have dramatic knock on effects for university budgets in 2012-2015.

Last August, 77,000 mainland Chinese were studying in Australian universities compared with 21,100 Indians. Although Chinese numbers jumped by 17% this year and those from India fell by 23%, some observers are predicting enrolments of Chinese will drop by up to 40% in 2011.

A fall of say 25 percent in international student enrolments across the nation would knock about $4B out of the tertiary education sector and the domestic economy per year.

For every dollar an international student spends at an Australian university, he or she spends another two buying accommodation, food, clothes and entertainment - and all that before family and friends visit. This will hit real estate, retail and tourism hard.

Last October the Government signalled its intention to commission the Base Funding Review for Higher Education as an outcome of the Bradley Review of Australian Higher Education. Base funding is the amount of money each institution gets.

In 1995 about 65 per cent of higher education funding was public. In 2010, higher education receives approximately 43 per cent of its funding from the public purse. About 30 percent of the short fall comes from international students.

Monash Vice-chancellor Professor Ed Byrne said the university generated some A$450 million a year from its overseas students, out of an annual income of around $1.6 billion.

Many people in the sector are looking to redress decades of under-spending on higher education in Australia and I suggest many universities will try offset their international student losses by seeking money from Canberra.

It's a wicked problem: continual underfunding of the sector and a freefall in international student numbers and revenue, at a time when, cosmetically, it appears the tertiary education sector is performing well.

Yet in a parallel universe, according to the Prime Minister's recent address to the Press Club "… if we achieve our goal of 40percent of our young people gaining a Bachelor's degree or higher by 2025, the annual boost per person would be around $775perperson on average over the next thirty years. The estimated gain in jobs is up to 75,000 each year, on average, over the same period."

But if our international student market dives, who is going to fund the local students?

In Tammi Jonas' excellent article in November New Matilda, called "Is This Where We're Heading?" she writes that just before Australia announced the Base Funding Review for Higher Education, the Browne Report was released in the UK called "Securing a Sustainable Future for Higher Education".

The UK Coalition Government acted on the report by placing the burden squarely on students to fund higher education. They will have to pay up to £9,000 per annum. Payments will be deferred until graduates earn more than £21,000 but they will be required to repay their debt at 9 per cent per annum; the debt will incur interest whenever the graduate is earning above thethreshold.

You might remember the demonstrations in London recently when 50,000 students attacked the Conservative Party headquarters. That was a reaction to the fee hike.

Could we see massive fee hikes here? There are clear recommendations in the Bradley Review that we shouldn't increase the burden on domestic students. In fact Bradley recommended that Australia needs to increase its public base funding contribution by 10 per cent.

There are a plurality of voices seeking funding assistance from Canberra and to be honest, universities are not on the policy radar. Answer honestly. Apart from possibly attending a university, when was the last time you gave some thought to how universities are performing in Australia?

Universities never run the television advertising nor do they threaten to withhold supply of important public services. Universities are conservative places and when faced with pressure, they have a history of turning inwards, shooting the messenger, hanging the shooter and then forming a committee to see if any OH&S regulation have been transgressed.

I have worked in universities off an on for 20 years. I have taught and led academic programs. I realised reasonably early on in my career that while creating curriculums from new knowledge was crucially important, we needed people who could actually sell the idea of "the university" not only to politicians but also to the general public.

Most daily newspapers have an education reporter and about 80 percent of their copy is dedicated to reporting on schools. I should know because I try to place stories in the media on university student profiles, new programs and new research. It's not that reporters don't want to report these stories. They just don't have the space.

Melbourne University VC Glyn Davis was right when he said at the ABC's The Drum that "… Politicians judge, accurately, (that) the public is not concerned about universities. What happens on campus does not shift votes."

The tertiary education sector in Australia is in deep trouble. Some institutions lost ore than one quarter of their investment portfolios in the GFC. The falling tide of international students will lower all boats forcing most universities to enact serious budget cutting. The Commonwealth Government's treasury isn't flush with money as it just pump primed the economy with $10B of cash. And the tertiary education sector as an "industry" has almost no political leverage or clout.

Hegel wrote "The owl of Minerva spreads it wings only with the gathering of the dusk" or in other words, you don't know what you've got until its gone. It's time for some serious promotion of our universities on how crucial they are to our social, economic and cultural fabric.