Following on from my last post on 24 January (see Do we take things for granted when it comes to paid work?

Here follows some extracts from a recent podcast which was broadcast by the ABC Radio National network titled, The life and times of an Indian student in Australia.

Seventy-five per cent of India’s population, or 750 million people are the rural poor, the people whose faces we see on charity donation envelopes. It takes only the remaining 25% to make it the biggest middle class in the world. Yet this middle class is completely different from the Australian middle class. Unlike the average Australian who earns around $200 a day, the average middle class Indian earns about 10 Aussie dollars a day. If the average middle class Indian wants an Australian education, all they have to do is make their rupee stretch way further than their imagination. Consider this: the package deal for a year’s worth of Aussie private college education can consist of:

Private college fees: $10,000

Visa fees: $2,000

Share accommodation: $6,000

Food utilities, full public transport: $10,000

Study-related equipment $2000

Fake work record: $1,000

Total package: $31,000

It would take the average middle-class Indian 109.58 years to save this sort of cash. In the absence of an annual stocktake sale of Australian education, it’s not surprising that most people prefer to take a bank loan. The great Australian dollar shows us its finger. We dutifully genuflect and kiss its shiny ring.

An Indian Parent: Not everybody has $200,000 or $100,000 or $50,000 sitting in their bank account, so they often have to take loan, putting their house as a mortgage. So suppose I’m sending my son to Australia to study, and I have taken loan from the bank, putting my land and house as the guarantee, and then the whole thing collapses here. What happens to my house and land? So neither my son got the education here, nor I would be safe with my property which I have put as a security. So that comes down to the pressure.

Hmmm – like you I’m sure you’re jaw dropped when you read above what I had heard on the podcast … It would take the average middle-class Indian 109.58 years to save this sort of cash.

Man alive … that is one bucketload of money!

Tune in next time for more.

All my best,
James E

James Evangelidis

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Tagged as: ABC Radio N, India, Overseas students