When Juliën Lubeek received a scholarship to complete his PhD at a prestigious Australian institution, he didn’t expect to be homeless and living through a pandemic.
After Covid delays forced him to extend his submission date at the end of 2021, his scholarship of $1,128 a fortnight ran out. For the next eight months, the international student experienced bouts of homelessness and of being unable to afford rent or food.
International students could not access government support during the pandemic but were allowed to work up to 40 hours a week. But Lubeek said working this much was “impossible” while studying full-time.
“Although I had a casual job, this wasn’t enough [to] cover rent, living expenses, transportation, overseas health insurance, medication, food,” he said. “International students are considered cash cows, not humans.”
International students are going hungry at an alarming rate and more support is needed to help them manage while in Australia, new research has found.
The Monash University report, provided exclusively to Guardian Australia, surveyed more than 60 international students in Melbourne last year and found they were being burdened by the rising cost of living, prohibitive transport costs and the difficulty of juggling study and work commitments.
There are 182,000 international students currently living in Melbourne, representing almost 40% of Victoria’s entire university population.
The report found almost half those surveyed experienced food insecurity – triple the rate of the wider population.
About 12% of Australians experience moderate or severe food insecurity, which occurs when individuals can’t access sufficient nutritious and culturally appropriate food. The rate rises to around a quarter for those under 25.
Co-author of the report Dr Beatriz Gallo Cordoba said she was shocked by how “at the brink” of hardship the interviewees were, often surrounded by stigma that forced them to struggle silently, leading to lower academic performance and wellbeing.
“They’d say ‘I’m OK’, and if you dug deeper, they were working different jobs, [and] lived in accommodation they didn’t like or they couldn’t afford to pay,” she said.
She said international students needed more support, including with food relief, financial support, vouchers or scholarships.
“We need to make sure links between communities and students are built faster … where to go to find food, different jobs, [the] feeling of having a community,” she said.
“It’s a story of struggle when you first arrive, we want to avoid that experience. Universities have a responsibility of care to try to build those connections, but they can’t do it alone.”
Co-author professor Lucas Walsh said many students had to implement coping strategies to get by.
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One 27-year-old male student who was surveyed said he didn’t choose what to eat – his wallet chose for him.
“When a crisis like Covid-19 or the cost-of-living crisis hits, many of these strategies stop working,” Walsh said.
“It’s not just in health terms, it can mean [a] sense of belonging, connection back home, something that can be fostered and nurtured.
“[International students are] silent communities that fly beneath [the] radar and we need to pay more attention. We need to embrace the idea we’re welcoming them.”
Another student, a 25-year-old female, said her relationship with food had changed since arriving in Australia and was “directly showing on [her] body and energy levels”.
The Greens spokesperson for education, senator Mehreen Faruqi, said Australia was “failing” international students through the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis.
“It’s a disgrace governments and universities treat international students like cash cows, enticing them to come to our shores but then leaving them high and dry during tough times,” she said.
With “sky-high rents” and a cost-of-living crisis, Walsh said it was unlikely the situation would improve in the short term.
“International students were a hugely vulnerable population during the pandemic – and there’s wider research its effects will have a long tail,” he said.
“The pandemic is not over.”
