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Two things
1. I said I don’t disagree so why the comment on letting students in ?
2. Universities were deemed ineligible for job keeper and also for rent relief when they were renting crown land so they weren’t treated like everyone else.
You're entitled to your opinion but given the job some universities are doing in undermining patriotic sentiment, they sit very low on my list of priorities. How on earth did they get by before fee-paying foreign students were invented?

In principle I'd be OK with a government subsistence allowance to enable local students to continue their education.
 
Agree with Sing it is important to start getting the OS students back if it can be done safely. Uni's need the revenue.

Makes you wonder how much influence Andrews Belt & Road deal with China has on this sort of decision?
I’m not necessarily saying we need to get the foreign student back now, what I am saying is that universities got no relief at all when others did and the amount of money they have been bleeding is enormous.
Foreign students can come back when we have brought back our citizens and we have proved we can do it safely imo.
 
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You're entitled to your opinion but given the job some universities are doing in undermining patriotic sentiment, they sit very low on my list of priorities. How on earth did they get by before fee-paying foreign students were invented?

In principle I'd be OK with a government subsistence allowance to enable local students to continue their education.
You are entitled to your opinion as well but that is just straight out BS. You’ve been drinking the Murdoch Kool-aid again. I suppose the lecturer in anatomy at Monash uni is a left wing socialist agitator? Universities are incredibly important to this country, indispensable.

The whole reason universities ended up relying on foreign student income is because successive governments cut funding over and over again
 
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You are entitled to your opinion as well but that is just straight out BS. You’ve been drinking the Murdoch Kool-aid again. I suppose the lecturer in anatomy at Monash uni is a left wing socialist agitator? Universities are incredibly important to this country, indispensable.
Dan has cancelled Australia Day celebrations in Victoria. I'd like to remove his glasses and poke him in the eyes. The Marxist movement has gone far enough.
 
You're entitled to your opinion but given the job some universities are doing in undermining patriotic sentiment

What is this, the 1950s? We need a better educated population, not a bunch of patriotic idiots.

Regardless hold off on international students until the vaccine is up and running.
 
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I don’t disagree but the Feds and the states have to do something about universities. They are bleeding to death.
Universities are not just about students they are also where a large percentage of our research comes from and that is very important for the country going forward from a number of points of view including employment.

The reality is that universities are being bled to death. How many times have they changed the rules on employment subsidies to make sure universities can't qualify, I think it was 3 times.

This after decades of inadequate funding.

The very reason that universities rely so much on fee income, more from Australian than international students, is woeful funding. We are near the bottom of the OECD for funding higher education and research. Add to this that the private sector in Australia wouldn't know what research is and we end up with the current situation.

Other industries have not been treated like universities, they have been subsidised to keep their staff, universities have been singled out to make sure the subsidy is not available.

DS
 
You're entitled to your opinion but given the job some universities are doing in undermining patriotic sentiment, they sit very low on my list of priorities. How on earth did they get by before fee-paying foreign students were invented?

In principle I'd be OK with a government subsistence allowance to enable local students to continue their education.

You are entitled to your opinion, but how about backing it up with some evidence - show me examples of where Australian universities are undermining patriotic sentiment?

Plus, why would we want to be rabidly patriotic? Doesn't seem to have done the USA any good, although does seem to work for China.

Universities got decent funding decades ago, it has been steadily eroded and the recent changes make this even worse. The fee changes are actually a reduction in funding with fees making up the difference.

Before asking for a subsistence allowance maybe do something about the increases in fees just put through by the government, with associated funding cuts.

We all turned to the university educated, and university employed, experts as this virus appeared, but they all work in a system with woefully inadequate funding.

DS
 
You are entitled to your opinion, but how about backing it up with some evidence - show me examples of where Australian universities are undermining patriotic sentiment?
Ah they are hotbeds of disgruntled self-loathing commo-loving *smile* and you know it.
Seen two stories in three days on different researchers from University of Queensland claiming to have the answer. Apparently the uni is known for headline-grabbing.
At least they got their pictures in the paper before losing their jobs. Solution first, party later.
 
Yeah, no evidence, thought as much.

So you have no problem with high level researchers losing their jobs? Why am I not surprised. You are right though, they would have all been on short term insecure contracts and most likely have lost their jobs.

This is how we do research in Australia, short term contracts reliant on getting funding which is shrinking, no wonder our best move overseas.

DS
 
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Yeah, no evidence, thought as much.

New Research Confirms Free Speech Crisis At Australia’s Universities

The survey, conducted by independent market research company Dynata, includes students of all political persuasions – 39% of students supported the ALP, 28% supported the Greens, 14% supported the Coalition, 20 % were Other and Undecided.

The results present are a damning reflection of the state of free speech at Australian universities:
  • 41% of students feel they are sometimes unable to express their opinion at university
  • 31% of students have been made to feel uncomfortable by a university teacher for expressing their opinion
  • 47% of students feel more comfortable expressing their views on social media than at university
  • 59% of students believe they are sometimes prevented from voicing their opinions on controversial issues by other students.
"The IPA's research confirms there is a freedom of speech crisis at Australia's universities. It confirms the crisis that students and parents experience every single day - but which university administrators are afraid to confront," said Renee Gorman from the IPA.
 

Chinese influence stifles university free speech

Only nine of the nation’s 42 universities have adopted policies that completely align with a government-backed model code on free speech, despite the sector committing to having policies in place by the year’s end.

The findings are contained in a report by former Deakin University vice-chancellor Sally Walker, who the Morrison government commissioned in August to review the university sector’s progress in adopting the French model code.

Professor Walker found that 33 universities had completed work to implement the model code, but only nine had policies that fully aligned with the French proposal.

“The French model code ensures freedom of speech and academic freedom are paramount values of Australian universities,” Mr Tehan said.

“Universities have until the end of the year to honour their commitment to align their policies with the French Model Code and I strongly urge those universities that have not already done so to take action.”
 

Gareth Evans says universities should confront 'warning signs' on free speech (SMH)​

Australian National University chancellor Gareth Evans has suggested there were enough warning signs for institutions to take action and prevent their campuses being "infected" by problems seen in the United States.

Professor Evans, a former Labor foreign minister, also defended the ANU's rejection of Ramsay Centre philanthropic funding, saying the decision was based on "alarm bells" over contractual arrangements and not hostility to the idea of a Western civilisation program. He lashed activists at the University of Sydney for opposing the principle of a Ramsay partnership, accusing them of "nonsensical" anti-intellectualism.

At an ANU summit on academic freedom and autonomy on Wednesday, Professor Evans said Australia did "not presently have anything remotely resembling a free speech crisis", backing comments on Tuesday from leading academic Glyn Davis, who dismissed the issue as a "confected calamity".

There was "no obvious present need" for a review of free speech on university campuses, Professor Evans said, rejecting the process established by the Morrison government that will consider measures to safeguard an environment of free inquiry in higher education.

But there have been enough incidents in Australia and abroad to justify consideration of basic academic principles and identify "early warning signs", he said.

Professor Evans pointed to a "handful" of campus speakers being disinvited or shouted down by protesters, "a few instances" of student activists advancing censorship and political correctness, cases of universities censuring academics for public statements, and the Ramsay Centre's conditions on its philanthropic funding for a Western civilisation degree.

He also criticised the "unprecedented ministerial intervention" by former education minister Simon Birmingham to veto research funding grants and government moves for "far-reaching national security" restrictions on some research collaboration.

"These various developments, rare or overblown though they may be, do raise issues of, variously, free speech, academic freedom and academic autonomy about which we do need to get our heads clear and perhaps think afresh," he said.

"I hope — and if I prayed, I would pray — that our universities never become susceptible to the kind of safe spaces/no platforming/trigger warning diseases that have infected a number of US campuses and which do have some advocates here."

He argued there were some acceptable limits on free speech and uses of "trigger warnings" and "safe spaces" to warn people of disturbing content and protect minorities. But he said universities "should set the bar very high indeed" when considering such constraints.

Professor Evans also renewed his defence of the ANU's termination of its dealings with the Ramsay Centre, pointing to the centre's apparent hostility to academic autonomy on multiple fronts. He said left-wing hostility like that seen at the University of Sydney was not a factor in the ANU's decision.

He urged Sydney to "put a big Monty Python foot on the head of those academics who are going along with this crap about Western civilisation" being inherently bigoted.

"It is essentially nonsensical and a university should not tolerate that degree of anti-intellectualism," he said.

Professor Evans also argued that universities should commit to paying for security precautions for controversial events, saying it was "unconscionable" to make speakers or protesters foot the bill for exercising their rights.

Education Minister Dan Tehan has suggested protesters pay some of the costs following an incident at the University of Sydney where the organisers of an event were charged for the security burden.
 
Just because you want to live in ignorance doesn't mean the rest of us should have to.

The IPA's problem is that they don't want to have their twisted views challenged by fact based research.

When was the last time you had anything to do with a university? Do you know anything about how universities run?

DS
 
When was the last time you had anything to do with a university? Do you know anything about how universities run?
I dare suggest I graduated more recently than you. The anti-West agenda was mostly covert at the time, scrawled on toilet walls or carved into desks by people including supporters of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I thought, "Who are these weirdos and why haven't I met one on campus?".

One of the senior lecturers confided that he was under pressure to pass fee-paying international students who didn't deserve to pass. That was the beginnings of what is now an epidemic.
 
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No tears from me if they go broke.​

I have had a lot to with universities as a student over the years, extensively through work and have lectured on occasions.
if you want to look for activism in universities you probably have to go back to the late 60 and 70s with Albert Langer and his ilk, because a lot of the people I know who work in universities are too worried about where to park their BMWs than formenting a Marxist revolution.
 
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The survey, conducted by independent market research company Dynata, includes students of all political persuasions – 39% of students supported the ALP, 28% supported the Greens, 14% supported the Coalition, 20 % were Other and Undecided.

The results present are a damning reflection of the state of free speech at Australian universities:
  • 41% of students feel they are sometimes unable to express their opinion at university
  • 31% of students have been made to feel uncomfortable by a university teacher for expressing their opinion
  • 47% of students feel more comfortable expressing their views on social media than at university
  • 59% of students believe they are sometimes prevented from voicing their opinions on controversial issues by other students.
"The IPA's research confirms there is a freedom of speech crisis at Australia's universities. It confirms the crisis that students and parents experience every single day - but which university administrators are afraid to confront," said Renee Gorman from the IPA.

Not sure how to respond to this.

On one hand the stats make sense. The more educated you are, the less likely to be a bigoted, Neanderthal, rabid Herald-Sun reading Pauline Hanson supporting, right wing voters.

But then if the numbers are from the IPA, then you already know they are complete *smile*.
 
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