The Albanese Government has set an 8% average increase in international student numbers next year, to 295,000, with all “active” providers receiving “at least” their current allocation.
While system-wide starts are 8% below the immediate pre-Covid peak, there is some room for growth. Students moving from affiliated pathway providers are additional to the cap and there are more numbers for those increasing their student housing. There is no word on any response to over enrolments this year, nor on different increases for public and private HE providers next.
The new numbers will be enforced by an updated Ministerial Direction, with the Australian Tertiary Education Commission planned to take over for higher education next year, setting caps from 2027. Yesterday’s HE announcement made no mention of arrangements for the shrinking ELICOS system, or the VET sector, where the worst of the visa rorting took place, by aspiring migrants, using study as cover while they worked.
Universities Australia was quick to respond, describing the announcement as “a sensible approach (that) will provide the stability and certainty universities desperately need.” It also suggested it could help with “the design of a new ministerial direction, to ensure our prized international education sector continues to deliver in the national interest.”
In contrast to its strident campaign against caps last year, the Group of Eight was similarly supportive, stating, “it supports the government’s efforts “to improve the quality and integrity of Australia’s international education sector.”
The outstanding international issue for universities is last month’s 25% hike in the student visa application fee, to $2,000. On Friday the Australian Business Deans Council BDC warned it will “privilege” wealthy students and “frustrate business schools in their efforts to diversify international student enrolments.”
Significant questions still remain over the detail of implementation of the Government’s decision, as well as whether ATEC will begin to remedy the structural inequality inadvertently baked into the system when Ministerial Direction 107 privileged students from countries perceived to by low risk – disadvantaging many smaller universities that had focused on building up pathways from countries perceived to be higher risk.
University of Newcastle Vice-Chancellor Alex Zelinsky welcomed the increase, but noted that distortions remained from MD107.
“I personally would like to see increases capped as a percentage of undergraduate load,” he said.
“The ATN has advocated for caps of 35%. One in three students is international. Once you get to ratios of 1 in two we are losing the essence of what is an Australian University experience for our own domestic students.”
Regional Universities Network (RUN) CEO Alec Webb likewise welcomed the growth, but said the devil was in the detail – with sophisticated policy nuance required if the Government was to avoid again creating policy that was prejudiced against regional institutions.
“It isn’t the right approach when you see the benefit of international students to all parts of the country, this is something that should be spread across the sector, not to a handful of institutions,” Mr Webb said (more below).