CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
Greg* (name-changed) has been living in Australia as an international student for a year now, and he loves it.
By night, he’s a food delivery cyclist who lives in a 12-bunk dorm room with shared showers in the Port Of Melbourne.
By day, he’s a proud member of the University of Southern Tasmania’s interesting and diverse student body, all of whom are also international students who work full time as frontline workers in Melbourne and Sydney.
While nobody in Tasmania has ever heard of this institution of higher learning, Greg* says he was motivated to apply for a degree at the Melbourne campus after being served countless Facebook ads back in his home country.
And he hasn’t been disappointed by the experience.
“The university has a great reputation for it’s Airport Cleaner and Pub Chefery degrees” says Greg* who spoke to the Betoota Advocate using an alias so as to not hinder his application for permanent residency.
“The Melbourne Campus is only small, so a lot of my study is done online. They basically only ask us to come in and sign some forms when we arrive. Other than that, it basically sits empty”
“It’s in a really convenient spot, though. Right near all of these busiest fast food restaurants, so I can always pop in to charge my phone in between delivering $37 dollar pad thais to the Australians who don’t like rain”
The University Of Southern Tasmania is just one of many previously unknown education providers that have set up shop in interstate cities, where international students tend to live.
As one of the nation’s leading exports, the international education sector has been scrutinised in recent years. In May 2024, the Australian government issued warning letters from the Department of Home Affairs to 34 education providers for “non-genuine or exploitative recruitment practices”
But Greg’s uni isn’t one of those ones. It’s a legitimate and recognised provider – despite the fact that not one of their enrolled students is actually from Australia.
A spokesperson for the USTAS Melbourne campus insists the university is not a ‘ghost college’ – it just happens to do all of it’s educating in smaller campuses that are based in the major cities that need heaps of cheap labour.
“The bottom line is, Australians don’t want to pay to go to uni” says the USTAS Melbourne Dean of Studies, Dr Hume Manconveyer-Belt.
“They certainly don’t want to live in the 10-story student accomodation towers we also provide”
