UNE warns govt not to rush international students decision

International students will be given incentives to study in regional NSW under a plan put forward by Premier Gladys Berejiklian to ease Sydney’s population growth.

While Annabelle Duncan supports more international students coming to the University of New England (UNE), the vice-chancellor said the government had to be “really careful” when it came to tinkering with the state’s second largest export industry.

“International education is a huge industry, a bit over $11 billion for NSW,” Ms Duncan said.

“A lot of the students that come here want to go to Sydney. They’re more likely to go to another country for education than to be pushed somewhere they don’t want to do.

“Also, a lot are not comfortable living in regional areas, particularity if the come from a big city in China for example.”

An estimated 220,000 of the 400,000 temporary migrants in NSW are international students, with 98.8 per cent of all international students in Sydney, with the remaining 1.2 per cent located in regional NSW.

Ms Duncan said more government-backed regional scholarships would be a “great way forward”.

“That would enable to us bring more students in, ones that do want to study here but may not be able to afford it,” she said. 

“That’s us saying ‘if you want to come to regional Australia and have a great experience, we can make it easier to do so’.”

UNE has increased the size of their international cohort significantly in the past 12 to 18 months, but it’s still very low compared to other metropolitan universities.

“If the government started sending more students our way, we would need time to upscale our accommodation,” Ms Duncan said.

“We are in the process of doing some at the moment, but there are lag times, and we can’t do it overnight.”