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Speaker 1: I'm walking through the campus of the University of Sydney.

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Speaker 1: It's week five of the four semester and the weather

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Speaker 1: has just started to cool. For the first time in

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Speaker 1: nearly three years. It sounds alive again, with students in

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Speaker 1: person offline. Among them a sound that's been missing for

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Speaker 1: the longest, international students, their voices echoing down the sandstone

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Speaker 1: halls of the Quadrangle. The University of Sydney is home

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Speaker 1: to a thriving population of international students. In twenty nineteen,

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Speaker 1: they made up forty percent of total enrollments and generated

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Speaker 1: one billion Australian dollars in revenue or roughly seven hundred

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Speaker 1: million US dollars. So it's no surprise that it was

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Speaker 1: one of the worst hit institutions when borders closed in

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty. After further consultation consultation with the National Security Committee,

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Speaker 1: of this afternoon tonight, we will be resolving to move

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Speaker 1: to a position where a travel ban will be placed

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Speaker 1: on all non residents, non Australian citizens coming to Australia,

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Speaker 1: and that will be in place from nine pm. Now

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Speaker 1: three years on, international students are coming back in droves,

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Speaker 1: but all is not the same now that borders have reopened,

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Speaker 1: universities are hungry than ever to win students back. Along

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Speaker 1: the way, they must navigate a new host of challenges,

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Speaker 1: from geopolitical tensions to uncertain economic conditions and sometimes even

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Speaker 1: the weather. So before I decided to go study aboard,

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Speaker 1: I actually choose UK first, but then I get like

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Speaker 1: serious allergy, and then my mom thinks I need a

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Speaker 1: need better environment like Finline etc. So she said to

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Speaker 1: me that you go to Australia is always raining in UK.

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Speaker 1: Joyce Shoot is from Beijing. She's currently completing her Juris

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Speaker 1: doctor at the University of Technology, Sydney and it's hoping

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Speaker 1: to practice law here in Australia after graduating. She's been

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Speaker 1: in the country since twenty fifteen and she wants to

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Speaker 1: call this place home for good. I true study law,

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Speaker 1: not only because I want to practice law, not only

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Speaker 1: because I think it's a good a combination with sociology

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Speaker 1: degree back then, but also I think law degree is

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Speaker 1: on the long term migration skills list, which would enable

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Speaker 1: me to get a cabinet residency after study. Chinese students

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Speaker 1: make up the largest portion of international students in top

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Speaker 1: English speaking destinations like the US, UK and Australia. That's

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Speaker 1: why the sector struggled to regain its footing of China

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Speaker 1: kept its borders shut. Now the students are rushing back,

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Speaker 1: not just because China has finally reopened, but also because

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Speaker 1: its government suddenly announced this year that it won't recognize

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Speaker 1: degrees earned online anymore. Or tens of thousands of Chinese

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Speaker 1: students are scrambling to return to that overseas university campuses.

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Speaker 1: That's after Beijing announced it would no longer recognize degrees

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Speaker 1: obtained through online learning under Already about thirty thousand Chinese

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Speaker 1: students have returned to Australia, with that number expected to grow,

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Speaker 1: but this snap decision has caused issues. Thousands of Chinese

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Speaker 1: students arrived in Sydney at one moments, and because of

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Speaker 1: airth the price of ryans is really high. This is

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Speaker 1: bow and Gau from Jejiang, China. He's studying computer science

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Speaker 1: at the University of Sydney. Oh. You know, like in

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Speaker 1: the past few years we could run a house with

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Speaker 1: like two or three hundreds, but it's up to seven, nine,

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Speaker 1: eight hundreds in this year. Skyrocketing rents are only part

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Speaker 1: of a bigger and troubling economic picture. With Australian inflation

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Speaker 1: running hot at seven point four percent, students are struggling

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Speaker 1: more than ever to make ends meet. Meanwhile, university staff

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Speaker 1: are still suffering from the pay cuts and job losses

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Speaker 1: during the pandemic, and they aren't sure that they're ready

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Speaker 1: to accommodate a surge in students. We have a deeply

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Speaker 1: hostile military management bright des ronment to railroads in persubmitions,

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Speaker 1: not on our one, That's what I say. Not there.

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Speaker 1: That's doctor Nick Remo, a senior lecturer and a union

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Speaker 1: leader at YUCID. He's at a rally at the most

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Speaker 1: recent staff strike where the union is negotiating for better

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Speaker 1: pay and more staff. Well, I mean, the first thing

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Speaker 1: that I think staff want is for the austerity camp

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Speaker 1: to be to be turned off. In my own institution,

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Speaker 1: the University of Sydney, the most recent surplus was over

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Speaker 1: a billion dollars, yet staff are still being told that

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Speaker 1: there isn't enough money for any number of things. The

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Speaker 1: rising student numbers seem like good news for these concerns. Globally,

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Speaker 1: the snapback has been even faster. In the US. New

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Speaker 1: student enrollments have already returned to pre pandemic levels. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: the UK has already hit its twenty thirty target of

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Speaker 1: six hundred thousand international students. The economic benefits are huge,

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Speaker 1: but students and experts alike are warning universities not to

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Speaker 1: treat education like a factory shop. Well, of course, it's

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Speaker 1: got value beyond economic value. Educations are human, right, It's

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Speaker 1: part of the way that we grow and the kinds

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Speaker 1: of societies we have in places like Australia or other

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Speaker 1: so called developed countries just depend on the existence of

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Speaker 1: very widely available tertiary education and that means that universities

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Speaker 1: should be well funded, they should be affordable. Ideally, they

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Speaker 1: should be free because they allow the kind of intellectual development,

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Speaker 1: may allow the kind of mental growth that we depend

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Speaker 1: on as a society. And it's not just about training

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Speaker 1: doctors and lawyers and engineers and teachers. It's about giving

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Speaker 1: people who are still really young when they come out

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Speaker 1: of high school that vital couple of years that they

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Speaker 1: need to think about what they're going to do in

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Speaker 1: life and think about the kind of society that they

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Speaker 1: want to be part of and what their contribution to

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Speaker 1: it is going to be. And that's something that we

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Speaker 1: should be spending enormously more money than governments in most

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Speaker 1: Western countries are prepared to. From Sydney, I'm Carmeliagana for

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg News