Australia will admit 270,000 new international higher education students next year, with universities allocated 145,000 places under a new “National Planning Level.” The Government’s overall target is commencements back at pre-pandemic levels.
With one big difference; which is what this is all about. As Education Minister Jason Clare told media yesterday, “What this means is, next year, that there will be about the same number of international students starting a course here as there were before the pandemic. There will be more in our universities and there will be fewer in our private vocational providers.”
Mr Clare and Ministerial colleagues announced the quotas yesterday, defying months of protest at the prospect of caps, including scathing criticisms of the strategy and expected allocation of places at a Senate Committee hearing on Monday.
Despite exposure over a lack of costings, the Government dug in , saying yesterday quotas were based on new international student commencements and the “concentration of international enrolments.“
Winners under the new model are “universities who have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic and uneven patterns of student returns,” which would cover small regional providers. Like Charles Sturt U, where VC Renée Leon said the university welcomed the new system adding, “we look forward to working with the Department of Education to ensure that Charles Sturt’s unique circumstances are reflected in the ongoing allocation.”
The more than likely losers include Group of Eight universities, with rapid growth in international arrivals post pandemic – notably some, or all of the big five, Uni Queensland, Uni Sydney, Uni NSW, Monash U and Uni Melbourne. Early analysis yesterday indicated the total quota for regional universities in 2025 would be up by over 50 per cent on this year while the Go8 would take a hit on 2024 starts, down as much as 30 per cent next year on this, a return to their 2023 collective commencements.
While public universities alone had their “indicative” allowances yesterday, the Government states other HE providers will be allocated around 30,000 places next year. Elicos is exempt under the still-to-be-legislated quotas. But voced providers will wear a dressing-down, with 95,000 starts, down from 103,000 already in the YTD to May. In a pointed message to the rarely named but oft-cited ‘shonky’ private voced providers that Mr Clare has repeatedly singled out to prosecute the case for quotas, the Government states that those, “with a higher ratio of international students will receive a lower allocation, encouraging them to diversify their student base.”
The closest thing to good news for all in the international education business is that quotas will replace Ministerial Direction 107, which delayed and denied student visas for not very, or no good reasons at all, as an ad hoc attempt to reduce arrivals. Recognising reality yesterday, Universities Australia lamented quotas as a “handbrake on the nation’s ambition” but welcomed the demise of the direction as stopping a “sledgehammer” hit to international education.
And for all the predictions that quotas will bring plague, pestilence and quite possibly locusts, political realists accepted the announcement as a policy they will have to learn to live with. Former La Trobe U VC John Dewar, now minding Uni Wollongong, said caps deliver “greater certainty, clarity and transparency on Government measures to manage migration.” His successor at LTU, Theo Farrell, also embraced the moment, “La Trobe supports transparent and proportionate measures to ensure the managed and sustainable growth of international students in Australia. We recognise that there is broad political and community support to reduce net migration levels.”
