Trans-Tasman bubble could deflate university’s numbers rise

Waikato’s tourism operators may be pining for the trans-Tasman travel bubble, but Waikato University is wary it could put a dampener on the rise of domestic student enrolments.

Waikato University has made a bold start to the year with 1200 fewer international students, but 740 more New Zealanders than last year – cushioning the blow of a forecast $7 million deficit.

Vice-chancellor Neil Quigley said the 9.7 per cent rise in domestic enrolments has come as a surprise, but is welcomed after a tough previous year.

The potential for New Zealand’s borders to open up to Australia soon however, could see some of those domestic students plucked out of the pool.

Quigley said the trans-Tasman bubble

wouldn’t fill the void from a lack of international students, and instead expects it to harm their boost in domestic students.

‘‘The universities in Australia are very good at targeting their scholarships to New Zealand students, and each year we lose a small margin to those competitors,’’ Quigley said. ‘‘We’re not talking about in the thousands, but the hundreds.’’

Until border restrictions loosen for places like China, Malaysia and India there would be no significant offset from the lack of international students, he said.

The looming dip in domestic students, however, won’t get the university down.

Quigley said he was still positive the boost in students would make some difference to the previously forecast $7m deficit this year. The number of undergraduate students – largely made up of schoolleavers – has grown by 27.4 per cent compared to the same time last year. The university has also seen a 19.8 per cent increase in students who have transferred from other tertiary institutions.

‘‘We have known about these increased numbers for a while, but a lot of students enrol at more than one university. We were waiting on the official figures, and it’s higher than we anticipated.

‘‘It’s a reflection of what other universities are experiencing – with students that would have previously gone on their OE now having to study at home – but it seems we’ve had a much more substantial increase than other tertiary providers.’’

The Tertiary Education Commission had agreed to fund the same number of New Zealand students at Waikato as in 2020 so the university would have to seek approval for the increase.

‘‘The lockdown last year has meant that a lot of people are now wanting to study closer to home, and more people are choosing to move into different careers.’’

In 2019, the university had a total of 10,342 full-time students and in 2020, 9930. The decline in 2020 full-time students was related to the downturn in international students associated with the Covid-19 border closures.

This year campuses will only have 724 international students, who chose to stay behind, and 100 existing doctoral students – allowed into the country from the Government’s pool of 1000.

‘‘Of the 100 international students that we will have enrolled, in terms of fees it’s only half of what we would normally get from that number, so comparatively we are only receiving the costs of 50 international students. It’s really not much.’’

The largest increases in total enrolments are in Education, Law, Engineering, Ma¯ori and Indigenous Studies, Health, Psychology, Science, Management and Marketing. Ma¯ ori students now make up 35.2 per cent of the University of Waikato student body, the highest proportion of all New Zealand universities. With Ma¯ori students accounting for 26.5 per cent and Pasifika students 8 per cent.

Quigley earlier told Stuff the university may have to look at staff redundancies for another year, because of a lack of international students.

Because of the increase in domestic enrolments and earlier staff restructuring, he said they would not have to make significant cuts.