In the news about the attacks on Indian Students, afew figures emerged that are interesting and give rise to a number of questions.

It is said that there are some 500,000 foreign students here and that the estimated income from their being here ranges fromm $12.5 Billion to $16 Billion per year.

Firstly the number is high and one asks how many students can our universities accomodate and how many places are still available for our own students. Are our own students losing out?

Were not our Unis built with taxpayers funds and specificly to benefit Aussie students. So who and when was the decission made to turn our Unis into revenue gathering centres?

Why do not the foreign students get their education in their own countries?

Is it really a backdoor method of immigration whereby the students obtain permanent residency visas and how many get such visas per year?

Are the visas that the students obtain counted in with the number of incoming migrants each year or are they seperate and additional to the incoming number?

Just where does all the income from the foreign students go? it has been stated that it costs each student $40,000 per year.

I do not recall us, the taxpayers, being asked about this nor has there been information freely available.

Like multiculturalism, it just happened.

Very good questions, especially the immigration ones, I too would be interested.
As for the number of foreign students, I don’t know the actual numbers, but there are many commercial “campuses” set up in city buildings etc, catering almost exclusively for foreign students, and these wouldn’t exist but for this “trade”.
The more relevant question would seem to be the number of them in established, recognized Uni’s.
As for being asked, the Gov’ stopped doing that some time ago, look at multi-culturalism, PC insanity, foreign wars, foreign aid, immigration, privitisation, the list goes on.
Bring on CIR’s,……… I wish!

Damned furriners again, eh Banjo?

All that information's readily available online and elsewhere if you were really interested in finding out the facts, rather than bleating on xenophobically.

But you're not, are you? You just want to whip your fellow travellers into yet another OLO frenzy of bigotry.

Yawn.

CJ, I think you might be a bit off the mark there. Those figures are not readily available, only statistics are, and we all know what they're worth!
If they are somehow accessible, please supply them for us, I've tried to finds them, unsuccessfully.

Maximillion, I'm not sure what you're getting at about figures and statistics - they're just deifferent words for the same numbers, as far as I know.

The relevant Federal education website is down this weekend for maintenance, but I'm sure if you go to http://home.deewr.gov.au/ tomorrow you'll be able to find any number of relevant numbers - but whether you believe them or not us entirely up to you.

Meanwhile, this fact sheet on Overseas Students from the Dept of Immigration and Citizenship should be helpful:

http://www.immi.gov.au/media/fact-sheets/50students.htm

Of course, you and Banjo could always just use Google yourselves, just like I did.

Well CJ, if you accept statistics as being the same as the real numbers, we have nothing further to discuss, different terms of reference.
I offer you the old wisdom, “There’s lies, d*mn lies, and statistics”.