Financial black hole for Adelaide’s universities

As a resume writer and employment expert, the ban on international students is crippling Adelaide’s economy and their job prospects. The three public universities provide around 7000 jobs and by extension, provide another 15,000 jobs in the real estate and hospitality industries.

South Australian universities may lose up to $3 billion by 2023 as the impact of Covid-19 ravages international student numbers.

This constitutes the greatest financial crisis the City of Adelaide and the state has faced since the State Bank disaster in 1991.

Significant job losses are expected at the University of Adelaide, UniSA and Flinders University.

The loss of revenue, especially for the University of Adelaide, will see research and teaching slashed by up to 40 per cent.

The Federal government said it will extend assistance to the tourism, arts, entertainment, and construction industries but as yet, no monies have been set aside for the university sector.

International student enrolments have crashed with more bad news last week, when the Chinese government warned nationals not to travel to Australia.

The Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism issued the alert, reporting a “significant increase” in racist attacks on “Chinese and Asian people”.

There are allegedly more than 40,000 international students enrolled in South Australian educational institutions, with the majority from China.

International education is the state’s largest service export earner and the second largest export after wine.

According to ABS, international students spent $1,468 million on education fees and other goods and services in South Australia in 2016-17, most especially in Adelaide city.

The university sector is struggling after a series of changes that excluded all public universities from the jobkeeper wage subsidy and the collapse of a deal with the National Tertiary Education Union to accept pay cuts in return for saving up to 12,000 jobs.

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