If you want a case study of how data is used to mislead, rather than help define a problem, then look no further than the recent stoush surrounding foreign students and their impact on the housing crisis.
We have as you know seen a massive upswing in migration to Australia, after the drought through the COVID years. The current high levels continue as the latest stats show with the current Government target set to be blown past by the end of the year.
A significant element in the numbers relate to overseas students arriving in Australia ostensively to study, but often as a proxy to gain longer term residency.
Overseas students typically spend several years studying in Australia. This means that many among the record wave of students that arrived last year will be here for some years to come.
A total of 767,120 people arrived in Australia on temporary student visas over the 12 months ending June 2024. These were spread across higher education, vocational education and training (VET), schools, and English language courses.
Some argue that from a purely economic perspective, a high number of international students is good for Australia’s economy and that Education is Australia’s second largest export, bringing in around $36.4 billion over the 2023 financial year.
Universities Australia chief executive Luke Sheehy said international enrolments should not be blamed for housing woes. “Using students as cannon fodder in the migration battle risks the viability of our universities and as national accounts show, the growth of our economy,” he said.“International students contributed more than anything to Australia’s GDP growth last year.
While it was certainly one of the factors that prevented Australia from entering into a technical recession last year, the truth is this is a statistical trick, as we have highlighted before, because many overseas students also work in Australia, and often send funds back overseas. See my recent discussions with Cameron Murray and Tarric Brooker, who have pealed back the truth – though the same lie about the economic contribution of foreign students is trotted out regularly by academics trying to defend their mismanaged of the economics of education, and to resist the proposed cap on students ahead.
The move has sent the education sector spinning, at a time when Government funding for universities is taking a back seat, and when nabbing vast numbers of overseas students have been required to make university budgets work. And of course, a whole new industry designed to pull overseas students into the country, with dubious educational value is in question.
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