Last year, foreign students comprised 53 per cent of the nearly 21,000 students enrolled on CQU's Australian campuses in the first semester.

But after a 25 per cent decline in their numbers this year, the proportion has dropped to less than 47 per cent of the 17,650 enrolled. CQU deputy vice-chancellor Angela Delves said other regional universities across Australia were facing similar problems.

This was especially so in 'resource-rich locations' where high salaries and plentiful jobs were attracting potential students directly to the full-time workforce. 'That's the reality and we need to respond to that,' Professor Delves said.

But local student numbers fell by only 400 and no other university has suffered such a dramatic drop in overseas student enrolments.

A university spokesman said there had been a considerable slowing of the international student market between 2005 and last year as Asian countries such as the mainland increased places for their own students.

The National Tertiary Education Union said the job cuts were only the latest in a long line of incidents as the university had 'lurched from crisis to crisis over the last few years'.

Margaret Lee, secretary of the NTEU's Queensland division, said: 'We are worried that this may only be the first tranche of job losses, as management has said the university will review progress yet again in early 2008, next time looking 'hard at academic staff'.'

She said the university's annual report had revealed huge salary increases for senior executives.

In 2005, executive salaries amounted to $A1.7 million (HK$10.81 million) but a year later, with an increase in executive numbers and a big pay rise for the top earner, the total was almost A$3 million.

The top salary, presumably for the vice-chancellor, increased from A$495,000 to A$699,000.

Australian academics are financially far better off than their counterparts in the developed member countries of the Commonwealth, according to a survey by the Association of Commonwealth Universities.

Although academics in Britain enjoy higher salaries overall, Australians came out best when the cost of living was taken into account.

The survey covered academic pay scales in more than 45 universities in five Commonwealth countries, including Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa.

The ACU researchers took the bottom and top of the academic salary scales for each country and converted these into a 'mid-point average' in US dollars.

These mid-point salaries were then adjusted by using a 'purchasing power parity' or PPP that was related to the cost of living. Applying PPP revealed the average salary mid-point for Australian academics was almost US$81,000, compared with an average of US$64,000 in Canada and US$63,735 in Britain.

New Zealand academics earned on average US$56,000 while those in South Africa had the lowest average earnings of just over US$52,000 although academics there have had substantial wage rises in recent years.

Losing allure

Academics and staff feel the pinch of cuts and proposed cuts

Decline in foreign student numbers at CQU in per cent 25