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Presenter: Welcome to this presentation on the results of our survey of Asian students in Australia, the UK and the US. Australia is growing in popularity among Asian students, while the UK and the US are losing ground as the place to study for a degree, according to out international survey. Our research is based on the views of 1500 undergraduates from 10 Asian countries studying in Britain, the USA and Australia. 60% of the students were aged between 18 and 21, and 30% were between 22 and 25. Four in 10 students cited a better quality of education as their main reason for studying away from their home country. About 27% said they were doing it to broaden their experience and because they were attracted by the cultural experience of living in a foreign country. Business, commerce and marketing are still by far the most dominant field of study, attracting almost two-fifths of students. Three quarters of Asian students polled in Australia said it was their first choice, compared to less than half when we conducted the same survey in the year 2000. From an Australian perspective, it’s very positive because more and more students are consciously choosing Australia rather than it being a second choice. The UK and American parts of the survey show that they are no longer the preferred destinations they were, despite still being seen as offering the best education in the world. Australian universities have done a really good job of promoting Australia as well as their own universities. Australia is seen as good value for money and is attracting the more price-sensitive students.
    Australia’s overseas student enrolments have doubled since the year 2000 to 200000 in 2006 at a time when they have declined in the US and the UK’s share of the global market is declining. Reflecting this increase, Australia’s education exports rose 17.8% last year and were valued at more than ＄5 billion for the first nine months of 2006. In the United States, a clampdown on foreign students following the terrorist attacks on September 11 has made many Asian students feel unwelcome. As a result, applications to American universities have declined. This could happen in the UK. If students find it hard to get visas they could question whether the country really wanted them. Another factor in Australia’s growing popularity was the wish of some members of the growing Asian middle class to settle in the country after studying there.
    The cost of study and value for money also featured highly on the list of reasons students gave for choosing Australia as a study destination: much higher than in Britain. 34% said they selected Australia because they thought living expenses were relatively less expensive and 20% made their decision because tuition fees were cheaper. Quality remained the biggest draw-card for students wanting to study in Australia, reinforcing the critical importance of its reputation overseas, according to new research. Asian students still ranked the US and Britain as having the highest quality universities but Australia rated third, but ahead of other destinations like Canada, New Zealand and Germany. Despite the emergence of trans-national education programmes. 81% of students did not consider undertaking a foreign degree in their home country. It seems that the concern that these programmes are going to diminish the number of foreign students is a bit premature.
    Only 4% of those enrolled in Australia had studied overseas before, a figure we attribute to an emerging middle class of Asian students wanting to study offshore. In the past, many Asian students had come from their home country’s elite, high-income families whose parents had studied abroad. What we’ve got now is an emerging middle class who maybe haven’t travelled before and whose parents were not educated overseas. Our study also shows that students rely more on education agents than in the past, with implications for universities that plug direct enrolments online. Whilst our findings are good for Australia, which is increasing in popularity as a study destination, they do not mean that Australia can rest on its laurels as competition is increasing from a growing number of institutions and study destinations.