Moment of truth for International Higher Education

International student migration ebbs and flows. We have seen the tide rise just before the pandemic and just after. But what goes up always comes down.

The international student flow is a big industry where fortunes have been made. The sector has its conferences, awards, rankings, Gurus, retreats and the works! It has grown manifold over the years and expanded in lockstep with the growth of China, India and the rest. The growing middle class grew precisely at the time when managerialism and retrenchment of public funds hit the universities in Europe, North America and Australia. So Champagne flowed!

The sector was built on a set of interlocking stories: The countries gain expertise, and the diversity of the student population helps the universities and students get opportunities and exposure.

All of them are lies, however.

A large part of the student flow - the part that the international education 'industry' caters for - is made of disguised economic migrants. The international student flow is just like offshoring jobs - it had its time, and now it is over. As the recipient countries struggle with housing and public services, they turn their back on international student flows.

The impact on the other side of the equation - the source countries - is even worse. It is not only about the outflow of foreign exchange, which can somehow be justified by the prospect of inflow at a future time. Where it hits hardest is the systematic degradation of the country's higher education infrastructure, as every dollar sent abroad for higher education is, in theory, not spent at the home country's institutions. The argument that the home country institutions are not as good as the foreign ones - hence the students go abroad - got the logic backwards: A country that actively discouraged students from going abroad, think about Malaysia, has seen its domestic higher education infrastructure improve.

In the meantime, the universities need to be more knowledgeable about who the international students are and what they do. For them, international student fees are just a line item, mostly unrestricted funds which can be used for vanity projects and to plug the gaps elsewhere. Over time, this has become a dangerous addiction. The new 'nawabs', those who run the international offices and partnerships, have reshaped the priorities of the universities, helping create mickey-mouse degrees and waving through pathway qualifications without the usual checks and balances. The universities may couch their international expansion under the research talk, as they do for everything. Still, in practice, it is nothing but a neo-colonialist enterprise designed to corrupt the institutions from the inside.

Finally, the students themselves are the victims of the system. Most are destined to toil in minimum-wage jobs for many years, jumping from one visa to another. They have minimal rights to have an everyday family life or prospects of integrating into the local community. Since no one cares for them in the countries they go to, their stories usually don't make it to the newspapers. They also want to keep telling the fairytale to their parents back home, who might have mortgaged their land to send them abroad. However, with the cost of living crisis and the oncoming recession, the suffering is becoming too much, and their stories are spilling over on social media.

Therefore, no one should be surprised that the party is now ending. Canada has now capped its international student numbers and asked its universities to find different growth mechanisms. Australia is looking to limit visas and tax international student incomes to pay for the higher education sector. The UK has started by taking away the rights of international students to bring their families and is now reviewing the graduate visa options. The for-profit sector, which has been driving the international student numbers, has been severely curtailed everywhere.

When I speak to people in the sector, wilful blindness prevails. No one believes that the changes are permanent or significant. In the past, countries played the game of musical chairs: If one country became more stringent, the other allowed students to come easily. And, then, the argument that there will always be enough demand. That this is different this time - the countries are all closing their doors in unison, and the demand may be faltering, especially from China - is not understood yet.

Also different is the behaviour of the source countries, which are seen as passive players in the discussion on international education. They are no longer inactive. China has taken an activist stance in stemming the student flow. There is significant legislative activism in India, and given its size, this will shape the international education sector globally. However, the traditional players are too absorbed in themselves to pay attention.

Overall, the sector is currently rearranging the proverbial deck chairs while the ship is sinking. There are no serious strategic conversations beyond the usual arguments around international students' contribution to the economy (slightly muted now with the issue of rising accommodation costs) and the clamour for graduate visas. There is very little commitment among the university leadership to rethink the proposition and rewire the institutions for the changing marketplace. Some are waking up to twining and other internationalisation methods without considering the labour market realities of the students' home countries. Everyone is searching for newer bottles to serve the same old stale wine.