Seven of every 20 dollars that fund Australia’s second- and third-biggest universities come from Chinese students, a report suggests.
Seventy-eight per cent of international students enrolled at UNSW Sydney last year were Chinese, according to an audit report on New South Wales (NSW) public universities.
This suggests that about A$1.35 billion (£707 million) of the roughly A$1.73 billion that UNSW earned that year from foreign students – about 35 per cent of its entire revenue – came from Chinese families.
That estimate could be conservative, given that Chinese students often favour relatively expensive courses such as postgraduate business degrees.
Seventy-seven per cent of overseas students at the nearby University of Sydney were from China, providing an estimated A$1.33 billion, or 34 per cent, of revenue.
