The outgoing head of Australia’s Catholic University (ACU), Greg Craven, has been chancellor for 13 years, making him one of the longest-serving and highest-paid university presidents. (Alan Porritt/AAP)
Greg Craven, president of The Catholic University of Australia (ACU), warned recently that Australian universities’ addiction to Chinese students was “like a drug addiction”. The current system of relying on Chinese students is no longer sustainable and the number of Australian universities in the world’s top 100 could end.
The outgoing professor had been president of the university for 13 years, making him one of the longest-serving and highest-paid university presidents. In an interview with the Australian before he left office, He said the over-reliance on Chinese students was a big problem for Australian universities.
“The old system of relying on foreign students is over, it is over. The broad market has collapsed and it is uncertain when it will recover. And the Chinese market, on which universities used to rely, had not only epidemic problems, but also possible sovereign risk problems.” Professor Craven said. “They [university presidents] all know about China, And I warn about it publicly in panel discussions, but none of the other presidents say anything. [Their dependence on Chinese students] is like a drug addiction.”
Before Christmas, the Australian Security Intelligence Agency (ASIO) warned Parliament: “The openness and collaboration of research institutions is the foundation of many of Australia’s scientific and technological achievements. However, international research partners with different political, cultural and moral values may try to take advantage of this open and collaborative nature [to achieve their goals].”
Salvatore Babones, a political sociologist at the University of Sydney, warned early last year that the education industry would suffer a huge loss from Chinese students not being allowed in, with Australia’s eight leading universities bearing the brunt. “Australia’s top eight universities are not just exporting education services to China, they are relying on China,” he wrote in his review. A communist country that imprisons hundreds of thousands of its citizens in concentration camps, represses 7m in Hong Kong and spies on the rest of its population is not a good option to rely on, but it seems these schools are not willing to learn from it.”
In last year’s Times Higher Education World University Rankings, six Australian universities – the University of Melbourne, The Australian National University, the University of Sydney, the University of Queensland, the University of New South Wales and Monash University – made the top 100.
Professor Craven said the eight leading universities would have to accept that their budgets would never be as large as they had been before the outbreak, and that Australia’s place in the world’s top 100 could come to an end.
In 2019, Chinese students earned a $7 billion in revenue for Australian universities and colleges, and many educators fear that if Australia continues to close its borders and relations with China deteriorate, that revenue will be lost forever.
Professor Craven warned that mid-tier universities, such as Catholic Australia, risk becoming “zombie” universities if they lose international students while seeing elite universities undercut their entry points and take away domestic students.
He also criticises Australia’s elite universities for not caring about other universities and not wanting to merge, just wanting to take more assets away. “If you let a group of elite universities decide the fate of others, they will choose to let [other schools] die.”
As he prepares to leave office, Professor Craven is proud of what he has achieved. “In those 13 years, we’ve basically transformed Catholic University of Australia from a school that a lot of people were looking down upon, into a real university that you can’t deny, and a very successful university.”
The school is currently ranked between the 250-300 highest in the world.
A group of female students pose for a group photo at the graduation ceremony of Catholic University of Australia.
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