Overseas-born students outstrip natives

PEOPLE born overseas – both Australian residents and international students – now comprise over one-third of the country’s university students, new census data reveals.

And the proportion appears set to rise, with enrolments growing more quickly among those born overseas than native born Australians.

Asian faces will become increasingly common on Australian campuses, with enrolments from people born in the massive continent rising about 20 per cent more quickly than those born in Australia.

Chinese-born people already constitute about one in every 13 students in Australian universities, according to an Australian Council for Educational Research analysis of last year’s census statistics.

However some of the least represented groups are among the fastest growing, the ACER found.

While people from central and western Africa and central Asia constitute barely 2000 of the 300,000-plus overseas-born university students, their numbers more than doubled between 2006 and 2011.



The numbers of students born in the Middle East and northern Africa also ballooned by about 80 per cent, reflecting migration from these two regions as well as their growing importance as sources of international students.

But while south-east Asia and the United Kingdom are also prominent sources of students, with about 70,000 born in the two regions, their numbers grew at well under the average growth rate of about 25 per cent over the five years.

The increase in students from Pacific island nations also lagged well behind the average growth rate, despite their proximity to Australia. And the numbers born in northern and eastern Europe and central America rose by just a few per cent.

The new figures suggest that universities are more culturally diverse than the general community, with only a little over a quarter of the overall population born overseas.

-  The Australian