Universities need to come to grips that international student enrolments are a component of Australia’s migration system and the Government should be expected to regulate levels, UTAS VC Professor Rufus Black told Future Campus at the HE FEST 24 conference yesterday.
While not specifically endorsing caps, Professor Black said that universities had to accept that past models built around measurement of success based on domestic and international enrolment growth had reached their use-by date.
Universities needed to find new ways to engage with the community, he said.
“We built universities for a growth-driven world. I think most universities have not come to grips with the fact that we can’t grow our way out of trouble any more,” Professor Black said.
“The only way we are going to grow is through pathways. We have reached saturation with students who are ready to go to university and end up poaching each other’s students.
“We spend very little on bringing people to pathways. Universities Australia has to rattle the tin and get together money for the Universities Matter campaign and it’s a tiny fraction of the money we spend on stealing students from each other’s unis.
“We need to deeply pursue solutions to the climate crisis … and pursue an outside-in approach to engaging with what communities care about.
“We pursue our own questions, not the questions the world is asking us. As the people with the knowledge and the skills to work to make these transitions (to net zero) we should be leading.”
