The Australian | 5 August 2014
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
The University of Melbourne has dramatically increased the number of international students it enrols and now has the largest number of any university in Australia.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Australian Education International data shows that in 2013, Melbourne had 14,165 overseas students studying onshore, leapfrogging the University of NSW with 13,123. Monash had 12,271, down from 12,581 in 2012 and 13,192 in 2011.
Melbourne now has the third largest proportion of international students of any public university with 27.1%, behind Federation University with 43.6%, most of which are enrolled in three Melbourne-based private colleges, and Bond University with 35.%.
Universities which have seen a decline in enrolments since 2011 include Macquarie (32% internationals in 2011 to 25.1% in 2012), Swinburne (29.7% to 19%), Central Queensland University (35.9% to 23.3 %), Curtin (25.9% to 19.5%) and University of Southern Queensland (23.6% to 19.4%).
While some of the change can be attributed to rising domestic numbers, only Melbourne, Charles Darwin and James Cook managed to substantially increase their international student enrolments in the 2011-13 period. The vast majority of universities either lost ground or remained flat.
Phil Honeywood, executive director of the International Education Association of Australia, told The Australian that Group of Eight universities had in recent years made concerted efforts to shore up international undergraduate numbers to increase their revenue streams and provide a pipeline into postgraduate studies. With the exception of the University of Western Australia with 15.8 %, all Go8s had had over one in four enrolments as internationals.