A desperate shortage of local students has forced Australian universities to offer free tuition to attract hundreds of masters, PhD and post-doctoral students from other countries, many from the mainland.
In Beijing on Monday, the University of Adelaide signed an agreement with the Chinese Scholarship Council under which tuition fees, travel costs and living expenses for mainland PhD and postdoctoral students will be covered while they are in Australia.
At least 10 of the new scholarships will be offered next year, rising to more than 30 over the following three years.
Mainland students are also being recruited with free tuition at the University of Western Australia, which introduced a fee-waiver programme in 2005.
Initially, 40 scholarships were available to foreign PhD students and this has been boosted by a further 50 places a year specifically aimed at mainland students.
At the University of Queensland, the school of engineering has attracted more than 30 foreign students by waiving fees worth A$30,000 (HK$206,000) a year.
