Australian universities will be prevented from enrolling a majority of international students, through intervention by the Federal Government and its many arms of regulation and coordination.
Education Minister Jason Clare ruled a line publicly on international student numbers for the first time on the weekend, telling Sky that the University of Sydney had pushed international enrolments too far – one of his first comments explicitly ruling out international enrolments of more than 49%
“It should be more than 50 per cent of students at universities being local students. It's one of the reasons why we didn't allocate more international student numbers to Sydney University,” Mr Clare said.
He also repeated the requirements of housing and South East Asian market growth as preconditions for growth in international enrolment allocations.
With a history of opaque rationales behind visa refusals and/or slowdowns, this is believed to be the first time the Government has explicitly identified a level of international enrolments that they view as unacceptable, although the actual ceiling that would be acceptable is not yet known.
Mr Clare is in comfortable territory globally, as pressure ramps up on international education in other key education destinations.