CQU is a leader in the provision of education to international students in Australia and international students have accounted for essentially half of the University's enrolments for the last few years... the report today by AAP refers to 2005 figures.

The federal guidelines don't take into consideration that a university can not fully know if there will be a shortfall in filling commonwealth-supported places until the after the academic year has drawn to its conclusion. So, in effect, the University does not really know at the beginning of a term if it can enrol any full-fee paying students. On top of that CQU, under current rules, is not allowed by the federal government to recruit commonwealth-supported students to its campuses in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and the Gold Coast - where demand is higher than it is in Central Queensland. The economic boom tied to coal mining and resources sector is drawing prospective students to full-time employment and away from tertiary study in Central Queensland.

If CQU were allowed to teach commonwealth-supported students at its four campuses outside of Central Queensland it could reach its targets and therefore recruit full-fee paying domestic students.

The only way now that CQU could benefit from domestic full-fee-paying students and compete on an equal footing with other Universities would be to deliberately and significantly reduce the number of commonwealth-supported places available in Central Queensland to ensure that we would fill all of those student places. That, however, would severely limit opportunities for Central Queenslanders to participate in university - and that's not an outcome that CQU wants or is willing to accept.

CQU meets its commitment to Central Queensland and any suggestion that the practice of recruiting full-fee-paying students has been or is detrimental to commonwealth-supported students in Central Queenslanders is false. Full fee-paying students have NOT taken seats away from any commonwealth-supported places. ENDS