E&OE 

GREG JENNETT: Back to the university and vocational education foreign student caps now to try to establish what the impacts might be. We are joined by Professor Margaret Sheil, deputy chair of Universities Australia, and also Vice-Chancellor of the Queensland University of Technology. Margaret, thanks for joining us on what I know is a very busy afternoon for you and the sector in your dual roles today. So, we’ve got the overall national cap now of 270,000 places or visas. Of course, it will affect different member universities in different ways, but as an overview, what does Universities Australia think of this figure as it’s been set? 

PROFESSOR MARGARET SHEIL: Well, thank you for having us, Greg. So, in general, our view is it’s a blunt instrument that’s going to have an impact in different ways across a really important sector. And every dollar that we earn from international students, we reinvest either into our domestic students or our research effort. And that’s certainly the situation at QUT. And this will impact on us both in terms of our current operations, which we’re still not back in the black after the pandemic, but also in our future plans. So, it’s still going to be really tough. 

GREG JENNETT: I do want to talk to you mainly as the UA deputy chair, but since you mentioned your other role, Margaret, does QUT have its figure yet? If so, would you share it with us or if not, it’s impact on your particular institution? 

PROFESSOR MARGARET SHEIL: Yeah, sure. So, everyone was provided with a draft number I think for checking this morning alongside the overall numbers. In general, the universities have not been hit as hard by this as the VET sector. And the extent to which it impacts depends, it’s a really complicated formula depending on where you were in 2019, how much you’ve grown since 2023 and your overall percentage of international students. But my university, a big domestic cohort, a smaller but still significant international cohort, it will impact on our capacity to support all those students, and we will have to be making some very tough decisions. And I think all my colleagues are in that same position and to a lesser or greater extent depending on where they were at the time. 

GREG JENNETT: So why don’t we broaden it out because in the one-page statement that Universities Australia has put out, much is made about the direct and indirect economic costs that will come with the caps. What do you say they will be across the sector in terms of on-campus job losses in particular, be it on the academic staff or elsewhere on campus? 

PROFESSOR MARGARET SHEIL: Look, it’s really hard to put an absolute number on that, but it is going to be substantial. I know that its impact is not just on us but on the students that we support and the services we can offer, but also those around the university campuses. So, the accommodation providers, the small businesses that rely on labour from international students in that job market. There’s a whole range of impacts that we saw during the pandemic and some of them will be mirrored with this lessening of demand. And in particular, we started to see that already with the ministerial visa directive, which came into place early this year. But for me, that has meant that we’ve frozen positions that we’ve started to look at areas that we can downside and everybody’s in that same situation. It will have a big impact. 

GREG JENNETT: So, in the case of QUT, and I’m sorry to jump around between your dual roles here, Margaret Sheil, but in the specific case of QUT, what is the reduction in the draft number that’s been communicated to you today, the reduction between your 2023 figure and what you’ve been handed today? 

PROFESSOR MARGARET SHEIL: It’s hard. It’s a complicated formula, but it’s for us about 10 per cent. But the bigger concern for us is that we had plans to grow. So, we’ve invested in engineering, which is in huge demand internationally and we are really strong at, and we started to form the partnerships and the arrangements to grow that because we’ve historically had a low percentage, so we are only around 15 per cent international. It’s really impacted on our future growth, but also the investments that we are making in some of those areas, we’ll have to either scale back or do something differently. 

GREG JENNETT: Okay. Now there will be, I imagine, a divergence of views among member universities at UA. Do you acknowledge that there will be winners as well as losers in the way this has been set up? 

PROFESSOR MARGARET SHEIL: Look, I think there are because of the way it’s been set up, but they’re not too many winners. Because international students don’t choose to, they’re in an international market. So, if the University of Queensland or QUT cap, then the students are not necessarily going to go to another Queensland University. They might go overseas, and that applies across the sector. I think what we were all seeking was certainty and also the way the visa directive has been applied. We were seeking to have that stopped because that’s created a huge amount of uncertainty. This gives us more certainty. But that Ministerial directive can still apply. And so that’s still causing anxiety amongst us all, I think. 

GREG JENNETT: And a final on the mechanics, Margaret. I noticed the Minister said today if unis don’t fill their cap, it could be reallocated to others. Does that soften the design of this for bigger institutions, yours included? 

PROFESSOR MARGARET SHEIL: No, because as I said you can’t direct students that way. We are in a market and so redirecting students to the places they don’t want to go to, you know that’s not going to happen. They will go somewhere else. So, that redirection is not necessarily, I don’t think anyone is going to have too much trouble meeting the lower caps. I don’t think it will be an issue.  

GREG JENNETT: I see. So, I think for clarity it’s reallocation of the number rather than a redirection of the student, but we will come back to that. 

PROFESSOR MARGARET SHEIL: The students would want to go where they are being reallocated to. And that’s the potential flaw in that argument. 

GREG JENNETT: Margaret Sheil, I know it’s been a busy day and time is tight. Thank you and we will hopefully speak on this again. 

PROFESSOR MARGARET SHEIL: Thank you for your interest. Thanks, Greg. 

ENDS