Dilema:Rental crisis and International Students

Featured topic and angles

A proposal to write a feature article that addresses the issue of the rental crisis affecting International students in Australia.

Sydney has been facing an acute rental crisis recently. Since the start of 2022, the advertised rents increased by more than 10 percent in Sydney, measuring a crippling market at its lowest availability since Covid in March 2023. There are multiple economic reasons behind this rental crisis, with a prominent factor of inflation in Australian dollars affecting thousands of renters while arguably benefiting some landlords. On the other hand, most International students will have to rent their residence should they come to Sydney and commence their costly studies. A rental crisis will drastically affect the budget of many International students and make them reconsider studying in Australia.

On the other hand, the Australian government and universities benefit a lot from revenues coming from International students. These revenues rose steadily yearly, achieving a 29 billion Australian dollar income for the universities. Furthermore, more than 75% of the fees come from International students. These profits drive a real industrial change that will impact the Australian economy should the numbers of International students decrease, as education has already become the third largest export in Australia.

Publication and target audiences

This article will catch the interest of all who work in the education sector, those whose jobs depend on international students or have business relevant to International students. It will also draw potential audiences from International students to know better about the ongoing social dilemma in Sydney and government officials concerned about the effects of the rental crisis.

As such, its solid social relevance feature would fit best in The Australian. It is the country’s daily newspaper that has an excellent reason to take notice of the rental crisis happening in a regional theatre that impacts the whole Australian economy, unlike newspapers like the Guardian, which focuses the scope on worldwide events, or Sydney Morning Herald that potentially limits the audience to just Sydney citizens themselves.

The available source of information and writing structure

The story will start with interviews with two students, Xiao Huang and Xiao Wang (both are alias). One has a lower budget to work part-time to support studies in Australia. The other would be less impacted. Secondly, the rental crisis affecting not only everyone but also international students. Finally,  before the conclusion,  an interview with an expert on the issue.

For source of Information, this article will choose first-hand interviews and research into economic data, such as the affordability of students in general and the price of student residencies.

The following sources will be considered:

Sydney Morning Herald

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Financial Review

Savvy’s Provision of infographs

The Guardian

Multimedia, hypertext & interactivity

Indeed, this article will come as a piece of online journalism, satisfying multimedia demands, hyperlinks, and online interactions with readers. There will be hyperlinks to every source the article researched and reports associated with afflicted events like the covid pandemic. There will be multimedia diversity in presenting international students’ infographics and a video version of the report. Finally, the online version of The Australian has a comment section for interaction, while SEO will execute using appropriate keywords and tags.

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