Higher Education Destination Choice: Australian Universities and Chinese Student Demand

In the growing global education market, China has become the largest country of origin of international students.While global higher education flows have continued their historical increase in recent times, the Australian higher education sector has seen a downturn in the face of increased global competition. At the same time, Australian universities have become quite reliant on international higher education as a source of revenue, more so than other countries.This thesis seeks to investigate, and integrate, the demand and supply-side aspects of the challenges facing the Australian higher education sector in the context of Chinese students.The demand-side analysis identifies the key factors that influence higher education destination choices of Chinese students.For that purpose, a discrete choice experiment is used which, to the authorâs knowledge, is the first study to apply this approach to international education choices.Following the findings of a literature review and focus groups, a discrete choice experiment is developed which includes choice attributes relevant to Chinese students.Survey data collected from a sample of prospective outbound students in China is analysed using choice modelling techniques.In the supply-side analysis of this thesis, the higher education situation in Australia and competitor countries is assessed in terms of Chinese studentsâ key choice attributes.Data collected comprises information from published reports and Chinese studentsâ perceptions from a survey in China.The demand and supply-side analyses are integrated via a gap analysis which establishes Australiaâs competitive position in regard to its competitor countries.This is further explored by simulation analyses of Australiaâs market share due to various scenarios of changes inAustraliaâs and other countriesâ higher education situations. The findings suggest that the Australian higher education sector is sensitive to changes in the level of safety and to educational quality as reflected in global university rankings.Further, given the importance of the costs associated with studying in Australia, offering (full) scholarships would have a positive effect on the sector.Similarly, the Australian governmentâs recent improvements in relation to student visas would be expected to be beneficial to Australian higher education providers