Withdrawals of visa applications by international students are rarely scrutinised, but as both sides of politics vie to slam the door on the queue of prospective students hoping to study on our shores, have become a point of interest.
The National Living Treasure of Australian Higher Education Policy Andrew Norton reports that as visa granting rates fell significantly in 2023, the number of students giving up on their dreams of studying in Australia rose – particularly in VET.
Professor Norton, now at the Monash Business School, requested data on withdrawals and found no major change between 2019 and 2023, with visa withdrawals amounting to around 1% of applications in bothyears. However as pressure on international students ramped up in 2024, 2.8% of HE applications and 6.1% of VET applications were withdrawn.
“This presumably reflects lower visa grant rates in vocational education, which were below 60% for most of 2024. Higher education grant rates only fell below 80% in one month during 2024,” he writes
Source: Andrew Norton
“In addition to the tactical reasons for withdrawing an application, simply giving up on Australia may also have been a factor,” Professor Norton writes.
“As of June 2024, the median student visa processing time was 94 days for higher education applications and 171 days for vocational education applications.
“It would be understandable if applicants just cut their losses and moved on”.
