Conclusion

Abstract

Over the last two decades, the meaning of ‘internationalization’ for higher education has undergone a fundamental and decisive shift. From being a topic of vague, peripheral interest to colleges and universities, it now represents an issue that is highly prioritized in strategic plans and policy agendas. The recruitment of large numbers of international students to HEIs is no longer simply a welcome although largely incidental addition to domestic enrolments, but instead is seen as critical to the survival of many academic programmes and even some institutions. Australia’s universities are perhaps symbolic of this growing and deepening relationship of dependency between domestic and international higher education. A recent government-commissioned report, Review of Australian Higher Education, describes the impact of internationalization on domestic educational institutions (Bradley et al., 2008). International student numbers have grown on average by 14 per cent annually since 1982, and education is now Australia’s largest service-sector export and third largest export overall (ibid.). Several universities rely on international students for over 25 per cent of their total income (the figure is as much as 44 per cent for Central Queensland University) (ibid.).