The Group of Eight

Episode 46 – The human face of the international student debate

The legislation that would have allowed for the capping of international student numbers looks doomed to fail – with the Coalition and the Greens opposing it. However, the debate around international students continues to rage – wrapped up as it is – erroneously – in arguments about cost of living, housing and immigration. We wanted to put a human face to our international students, so we invited three of them – Ayesha Shaikh from the University of Sydney, Bolong Du from The University of Queensland and Cyrus Cheng from UNSW – into the pod booth to tell us about their motivations, hopes and experiences as international students in Australia. Recorded November 2024.