I think the article is somewhat one-sided.

Part of the boom related to international students relates to this industry being a backdoor means for those in developing countries to either immigrate to Australia or obtain short term working visas.

If abuses of the system were removed there would be a big fall in the number of overseas students and some of our more dubious institutions would be forced to close.

When I was a child, they had these chewing-gum packs with picture-cards inside. The pictures were random, but not evenly distributed, so one had to buy a lot of them in order to obtain the full series and so I used to spend all my pocket-money on the chewing-gums for the pictures I was collecting. The unwanted chewing-gums went straight to the bin because I never liked it and it's very bad for the teeth (later I found that it also dehydrates the brain).

So let's skip that unhealthy chewing-gum and sell Australian residency directly: it will be a win-win situation... except for this no-gooder who wants to be a minister!

Something needs to be done before our reputation as a provider of quality tertiary education is completely shot. My vet told me that Sydney University is now awarding Vet Science degrees to overseas students who haven't completed the full course - apparently some refuse to do the horse and farm animal component because they say they don't need it, but once they are given the degree there is no way of knowing they have no training in that area and nothing to prevent them treating those animals. But they pay big money so they can buy whatever degree they want.

Keith Suter sees the money that is pouring into the universities via the immigration scam that they are running, but not the effects on academic standards, which don't matter to many of the students, because they are really paying for a visa.

He also ignores the effects on the domestic population of the very high population growth that our politicians are forcing on us, partly through those visas, which is outrunning the ability of the economy to keep up (among other things). House prices have been skyrocketing, as have utility bills, and people in our cities are being forced to put up with more crowding and congestion.

From the latest figures from Roy Morgan Research, 17.6% of the working age population is unemployed or underemployed. It was 20.1% back in June. Jobs such as in accountancy are being kept on the skilled migration list for the sake of the universities, even though there is an oversupply of accounting graduates.

New residents (including students) need the full panoply of infrastructure and government services immediately, roads, schools, hospitals, sewers, power plants, etc. These have to be paid for by existing residents, as it may take decades before the new resident has contributed enough to pay for his share. See this article by the economist Ralph Musgrave on the non-housing costs in the UK, estimated at 30,000 pounds per person as of 2008, and this one by Jane O'Sullivan on the costs in Australia.

http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/6869/

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0270.2011.02125.x/pdf

We need to reverse the Dawkins reforms and turn the universities that were Colleges of Advanced Education (CAEs), which were much cheaper because they didn't give advanced degrees or do research, back into CAEs. This would make our tertiary education system affordable again. The number of foreign students could then fall back to traditional levels, and they could expect a good education, but not necessarily permanent residency.

Agree with Divergence, who says it all!
Rhrosty.

Afterthought.
Return the former funding levels to CSRIO, and make them take on the bulk of publicly funded research, given a better record of essential commercialization!?
Rhrosty.

Would you'd like to run for Parliament , Divergence? You'd have my vote.

International education and the benefits have never been explained by the sector, politicians or media:

- much of the sector including universities,TAFE, state marketing bodies, federal and state departments, QUANGOS etc. have been less than transparent and professional in their offshore 'activities'
- comments here reflect the negative media and societal memes that now exist in Australia re. international education and 'foreign students' e.g. all students can gain PR, is simply untrue, all students who are eligible, apply and IF successful for PR, come under the Skilled Migration cap
- such 'greenwashing' memes emanate from Australia's best demographer, 'environmentalist' and 'nationalist' Bob Birrell and others in the John Tanton anti-immigration zero population growth movement or network. In Oz also includes Sustainable Population Australia (i.e. Bob Carr, Flannery, O'Connor, O'Sullivan, Goldie et al), and Population Matters in the UK which also includes O'Sullivan and others linked to Tanton). They are helped along by all mainstream media in Australia, including the likes of Andrew Bolt, Jon Faine, Robyn Williams, Alan Jones, Tim Colebatch, Leith van Onselen, current affairs tv et al
- it reflects an old white Australia with antipathy towards diversity and multiculturalism, but through targetting the cliched proxy issues of population growth and immigration e.g. environment, carry capacity, back door immigration, property prices, unemployment, Chinese investment etc.

Use of personal biases and philosophy masquerading as academic research i.e. claiming empirical evidence or at least correlations via Malthus, Ehrlich, Tanton, Birrell locally et al, so bigots can attack non European foreigners without using racist language, i.e. dog whistling to 'demonise immigrants'.

The fulcrum of this campaign is the presentation of population data such as NOM Net Overseas Migration (mostly temps since 2006 definition change, but suggests they are all ‘immigrants’ i.e. permanent), and making correlations without evidence that blames ‘foreigners’ for any perceived negative.

However, unlike politicians and media in Australia, there is more awareness in the UK. There are calls to drop international students from the NOM, present NOM in a less 'emotional' way and although Population Matters UK try, there is overwhelming support for internationals students, if explained http://tinyurl.com/pk39yfh

Andras,

I suspect that you are far more concerned about the multicoloured folding stuff than about racism. Personally, I don't give a damn about race. I care about the 1000 plant and animal species that are endangered just in New South Wales (according to its government, not fringe greenies), in many cases because their habitat is being bulldozed by developers.

http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/threatenedspecies/

The quality of life issues due to crowding, congestion, and inflated prices for housing and utilities are also things I care about, as well as the unemployment and inequality due to an oversupplied labour market. They are very real, however much you want to pooh-pooh them.

It is true that international students don't automatically get permanent residency (I never said they did), but 34% of them do, and there are other temporary visas that let them work in Australia after graduation.

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/E0FE4ACEF9C8A65ACA25732C00207596?opendocument#Untitled%20Section_3

http://www.immi.gov.au/Visas/Pages/485.aspx

The issue is one of numbers and the rate at which people are being added, not the character of the migrants. Let's talk about your motivations instead.

If any readers are interested, they might take a look at The Conversation, where people are required to use their real names. Andrew Smith's rants there about Tanton, racist dog whistling, etc. are almost the same as Andras' ones here. There is also a line under the names of commenters where they give their occupations. Andrew Smith calls himself "Education Consultant at Australian & International Education Centre".

So, of course I had to look up this Australian & International Education Centre on the Web:

"Central Europe and Turkey education & training services and consulting including market development, digital marketing & promotion, recruitment, study application, visa, migration referral, accommodation assistance and marketing services.

"Marketing services & consulting focuses upon digital channels to increase awareness, range, depth and breadth of an institution's potential market.

"AIECS's focus for market development and student recruitment is between Australia, Europe and Turkey (& Turkic Republics)."

https://www.linkedin.com/company/aiec-quest-australian-international-education-centre

Brilliant work Sherlock :) I have often divulged my name and co. here, but OLO does not have the capacity for one to use in moniker, unlike The Conversation, but the idea is to address facts, play the ball, not play the man, but most here are incapable of reasoned thinking let alone discourse.

So Divergence, who are you, quid pro quo? Courageously hiding behind a moniker, making personal attacks rather than addressing research, data and facts, like most of your fellow travellers who do not seem to understand what evidence and empirical science is.

I'd suggest looking into peer reviewed international research vs local biased rubbish masqerading as research from Birrell's propaganda unit at Monash University e.g Angus, Goldin, Rosling et al who have research exertise (and Australian demographers such as Hugo, McDonald et al), as opposed to Tanton's followers and journal TSCP The Social Contract Press for which Birrell, Betts, O'Connor et al have all contributed, it has been described by human rights NGO Southern Poverty Legal Center (and concurred by the Anti-Defamation Leage and praised by StormFront):

'.... routinely publishes race-baiting article from white nationalists ....... it puts an academic veneer of legitimacy over what are essentially racist arguments about the inferiority of today's immigrants'.

Have you ever wondered why Birrell, Sustainable Population Australia etc. along with 'dog whistling' politicians and media in Australia have almost nothing positive to say about those of non European background in Australia?

It's not an issue of right vs left, I know conservatives more tolerant than some Greens or Labor types, it's simply bigotry, while both playing on ignorance, and being ignorant about the roots of the anti-immigration zero population growth environmental cause, one hopes.

While they wish to stop temporary resident international students for the benfits of Australians, it also means they want to stop local students gaining the advantage of subsidised and lower fees..... seems a bit disengenuous?

It is you who have been playing the man and not the ball, Andras. You accuse anyone who disagrees with you of racism and refuse to entertain the idea that they just might be motivated by concern for the environment, or the welfare of their own children and their fellow citizens in an increasing crowded and degraded environment. You refuse to address our real arguments, preferring to just scream about racism, even when you can't point to anything racist that your target has actually said or done. That is why you have to rely on tenuous chains of guilt by association. Someone once met John Tanton. Someone published an article in a magazine that also published an article by a racist. So far as I am concerned, I challenge you to link to any of my posts that expresses hatred or contempt for people on account of their race. If you are free to imply that I am a racist, then I am free to point to your financial interest in this matter, or even give my real opinion of growthists in general as environmental vandals and traitors to their country.

So far as my real name is concerned, I don't care to have folks like you threatening me or my family. I have no financial interest in this debate, and it is hard to think of how I could.

Your admiration for experts and peer reviewed papers stops with experts who agree with you. You denigrate any on our side such as Prof. George Borjas at Harvard, Prof. Robert Rowthorne at Cambridge, or any number of natural scientists. You just call them racists and incompetent, making no attempt to refute their arguments, however.

Having some foreign students is good, but these huge numbers are only an attractive proposition because people like you can privatise the profits and socialise the costs. You get the money, the universities get corrupted, and the bulk of the population gets the congestion, overpriced housing, water rationing, higher taxes and charges to pay for the extra infrastructure, depressed wages, and so on.

So you are one of 'them' who lurch into the social territory about immigrants, population etc., attacking those who disagree with your beliefs, then complain of being victimised, sounds like another of Birrell's acolytes, Andrew Bolt, is that you Divergence? End of story. :)