Australia’s declining appeal for international students – hike in visa fees, min saving requirements and now a cap!
Australia has announced a restriction on the enrollment of international students. It will accept only 2,70,000 overseas students in 2025.
The cap is applicable for higher education and vocational courses in Australia and will apply to ‘new’ international students who will commence their education in the country for the first time in 2025.
Students in school, postgraduate research students, and some English Language students are exempted from the cap.
The overall cap count for public Universities in Australia is set at 1,45,000 new international students.
The count is based on the percentage of international student enrolments on Australian campuses.
The cap count for Australian private universities and non-higher education institutions is set at 30,000 new international students.
The vocational educational sector has a cap count of 95,000 new international students in 2025.
Aspiring international students were yet to fully digest the announcements relating to visa-fee hikes and higher savings requirements, and the announcement relating to cap on international students soon followed.
Starting July 1, the visa fees for international students have increased to Australian dollars (AUD) 1,600 from AUD 710.
For the primary applicant (international student), post May 10, the minimum savings requirement has been hiked to AUD 29,710 from AUD 24,505.
Similarly, the savings requirement has increased for the accompanying spouse (if any) to AUD 10,394 from AUD 8,574.
According to the ICEF Monitor, a market intelligence platform for the international education sector, the study visa grants have been significantly down during the first four months of 2024.
And this was before the announcements relating to visa fee hikes, hike in minimum saving requirements or even the cap on international students.
Referring to data from Australia’s department of home affairs, it states that there were a total of 74,421 study visas granted to offshore applicants from January through April of this year, a 30% decline from 104,808 granted in the same period in 2023.
The vocational education and training and language training sectors have been especially hard hit so far this year, recording 69% and 56% declines in visa grants respectively.
The two sectors combined accounted for two-thirds (61%) of the total decline in visa grants for the January-April period this year.
However, in the past, the media has quoted Jason Clare, Education Minister as saying that the growth in vocational education courses reflects a scenario that people are lured to Australia to work and not study.
Data referred to by TOI shows that during the year 2023, there were 1.24 lakh Indian students in Australia, this has come down to 1.18 lakh during Jan-May 2024.
Universities decry the move:
The Group of Eight (Go8), which comprises Australia’s leading research-intensive universities –
the University of Melbourne, the Australian National University, the University of Sydney, the University of Queensland, the University of Western Australia, the University of Adelaide, Monash University and UNSW Sydney have decried the international student caps for the damage they will do to the sector (a vital $48 billion export industry) and the nation.
Go8 in a release add: We saw yesterday at the Senate inquiry that there is no economic modelling on the impact of caps, and this has not changed with today’s announcement of a National Planning Level target of 2,70,000 for international education.
This policy was bad yesterday and it is bad today – the unexplained number gives us no comfort.
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