Australian universities bemoan drop in overseas students

Figures recently released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that around 200,000 fewer foreigners settled in Australia last year. However, Australia’s population grew by 1.7 percent in 2024 to 27.4 million. This is due to more than 300,000 people added from overseas migration as 594,900 arrived but only 254,000 left the country.

In February this year a record 200,00 students arrived but this has slowed significantly since, with a 30 percent decrease in student visa applications. Of this student intake, visa applications from Indian student dropped by 33 percent over the past year and those from Chinese students also dropped a little.

Australian universities are bemoaning the changes to student visas implemented by the Australian Government as they state that with Trump’s policies limiting places in US universities, we could be taking advantage of the situation and inviting more to study here. Harvard University in the US, one of the world leading universities is currently unable to enrol overseas students, and from late May 2025, US embassies have been instructed to suspend all student visa appointments, making the USA an unlikely destination for international students.

There are roadblocks for the Australian universities and international education market. On one han the Department of Home Affairs facing a backlog of applications. It is expected that the backlog will grow during the rest of the year. The Administrative Review Tribunal also has an onshore student refusal backlog to overcome, which at present is at a new high with 34,470 at the end of May 2025. It is expected that to clear that number of appeals may take years to address.

Temporary graduate visas that were restricted to be available only to international students under the age of 35 since July 2024 have seen an increase in refusal rate to almost 2000 for the current fiscal year. Finally, student visa cancellations have grown to almost 1000 for the same period.

As the student visa program has seen decline, there has been an increase to almost 300% in comparison to the same time last year in the employer nominated visa applications, programs like Skills In Demand visa, Training visa and Employer Nomination Scheme. The refusal rates in these program have also increased.

Photo by Nico Smit on Unsplash