Foreigners are 'exploited' | The Australian

Foreigners are 'exploited' | The Australian Foreigners are 'exploited'Font Size: Decrease Increase Print Page: Print Milanda Rout | February 06, 2008 CONTRARY to their image as cashed-up BMW drivers, many overseas students cannot afford to eat, are paid well below the minimum wage and are among those most vulnerable to exploitation in this country, new research says. More than one-third of overseas students struggle financially and about 60 per cent are paid less than the legal minimum wage, according to the research. The alarming findings come as education overtakes tourism as the nation's biggest services export, increasing by a huge 21 per cent in 2007 to $12.5 billion. The number of international student enrolments rose 18 per cent on the previous year to more than 450,000, the latest figures show. The authors of the joint Monash University and University of Melbourne studies slammed universities for treating foreign students like "cash cows", and criticised the Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee (now known as Universities Australia) for failing to include overseas students in a recent student welfare study. They wrote that "many internationals are disadvantaged by their relative deficit of language and cultural skills, they are crowded into a narrower range of jobs than is available to their domestic peers, and they commonly offset these disadvantages by working for less than the legal (minimum)". The two papers, one on international students in the workforce and the other on the financial difficulties faced by overseas students, were based on interviews with 200 students at nine universities across Australia. The researchers found that almost 60 per cent of students earned below the minimum wage and 37per cent had experienced financial hardship, including not having enough money to travel to university or even eat.