The View
Australian international student caps
By Professor Carolyn Evans,
Vice Chancellor and President, Griffith University
"It is too soon to know whether international students will still be willing to come to Australia in the numbers they have before."
Australian universities have been struggling to deal with the consequences of the current informal caps on student visas and have serious concerns about the long-term impact of formal, legislated caps on visas.
A very substantial number of Australian universities, including Griffith University, have experienced a serious decline in international students this year. This has not been caused by a lack of interest; on the contrary, we saw very strong interest from able candidates and we made a substantial number of offers. Nor is it because we were among the ‘shonks’ that the Education Minister has singled out as rorting the education visa system. As he acknowledges, these were overwhelming in the private vocational education sector.
Instead, it was the work of Ministerial Direction 107 which, in an effort to reduce overall numbers, led to delays and rejections across a majority of universities for students who in previous years would have been granted visas. A renewed focus on risk under 107 saw Chinese students fast tracked through the process, even though both sides of politics have been critical of Australian universities for being too reliant on China for students.
The unfortunate impact of these changes was amplified by several other changes in subsequent months which made Australia a less desirable destination for international students. These included substantial increases in both the visa application fees and required level of savings in the bank for applicants, changes in the way that visas were assessed, and a reduction in post-study work rights for some international students. On top of these, the caps now add an additional layer of uncertainty for international students into the future.
The combined impact of these measures has been to diminish Australia’s reputation as a high-quality, stable and welcoming environment for international students. Many students are starting to look elsewhere for their international studies.
"While Australian universities are often criticised for being overly-reliant on international students, the current policy framework makes a level of reliance a financial necessity."
The indicative caps that the Department of Education has now given to each university for 2025 seeks to flip the winners and losers for this year. Universities with very high proportions of international students are effectively having their number of visas reduced while those who have suffered most this year are being given capacity to grow. All of this is dependent on the underpinning legislation passing the Senate in coming weeks, but it looks set to do so with Opposition support subject to some changes.
It will be important, once of the legislation is passed, for Ministerial Direction 107 to be rescinded. It is clear that this is the plan, but the timing is more of a question. With the months in the lead up to Christmas being a prime time for Australian international recruitment, it is essential to rescind the Direction immediately.
It is too soon to know whether international students will still be willing to come to Australia in the numbers they have before. Australian university leaders are all too familiar with the example of Canada where the caps applied by the government have not been reached as students seek more welcoming destinations. It is very late in the recruitment cycle to suddenly increase the number of international students. For those facing large cuts, it is difficult to limit the number of students when so many offers have already been made.
There is a very plausible scenario for 2025 where the universities which have been given a lot of room to grow are unable to achieve that in such a short timeframe while other universities must retract offers. In these circumstances, the financial – and subsequent human – consequences for the whole sector will be serious.
The longer-term is still unclear. Even though my own university has the potential to benefit from the larger caps this year, we are concerned about the power given to a Minister (and probably to ATEC over time) to make decisions on relatively short notice that have long term implications for our strategies and sustainability.
While Australian universities are often criticised for being overly-reliant on international students, the current policy framework makes a level of reliance a financial necessity.
At present, the funding for domestic undergraduate students mandated by government does not cover the full cost of delivery; this is particularly the case for students who suffer educational disadvantage and high costs courses such as medicine or music. The level of funding for indirect costs for research have been declining for some years and sits at an unsustainable 14 per cent (2023), given that grant funding only covers around half of the total cost of research.
There is no funding for replacing ageing buildings or major digital infrastructure with a fund that had been set aside for this repurposed some years ago. Regional universities are given a loading, but it does not bear much relationship to the additional costs of providing education in sparsely populated areas.
While for some universities other sources of income such as philanthropy, commercialisation or leveraging of property bring in additional revenue, the only really substantial funding that covers all these critical gaps are fees from international students.
Until these structural issues are resolved, Australian universities will need to be able to rely on a stream of revenue from international students. The introduction of caps puts a critical element of this revenue in the hands of someone else to determine.
There are some glimmers of hope. The government has begun consultations on needs-based funding which aims to provide more realistic funding for educationally and socially disadvantaged students. This is an important first step towards the objectives in the Universities Accord, to provide a more stable and sustainable sector for Australia. After all the disruptions of the past year, moves in that direction would be welcome indeed.