Opinion
International students were hardly the flavour of the month in the last election campaign, but if the sector doesn’t act this year, onshore enrolments could become a far more damaging issue, as all parties seek to present themselves as cracking down on immigration.
It is clear a renewed platform will be required by the sector in the months ahead to build a far stronger case in favour of international enrolments.
There are some easy responses to Mr Canavan’s latest comment on Friday, when he said that Australian students had reported up to 80% of peers were international students. (What students are still going to lectures? How did they identify up to 4 in 5 of those attending as foreign nationals? What about VET? How about visiting education agents in more than one city?). However, the latest comments are simply a fragment of the broader assumptions of many immigration opponents. The assumption that international students are stealing ‘our’ houses sits alongside a trope of universities as money-grubbing corporations dining out on a revenue loophole without doing anything for Australians, articles of faith framed in the cultural Pool Room of too many Australian households.
The latter perception about universities has partially been fuelled by disaffected staff not willing to recognise where they pay packets come from; partly by a spectacular failure to hose down VC pay issues; and partly by painful failures in governance and management. This appears to have contributed to a shattering of social licence, with middle Australia unable or unwilling to see what universities do for them, while some universities have also failed to explain why they are pocketing hundreds of millions in profit while their domestic humanities students are still stumping up $50k each for an undergrad degree. Australians are not buying the value proposition of HE.
It’s fair to assume, based on the last election campaign, that Coalition promises to slash international visa numbers will be met by muscular posturing from Labour demonstrating how they, too, can be tough on visa numbers.
Given this landscape, here’s a short take on some initial, pretty urgent steps forward:
- Do the maths. In an industry stacked with many of the nation’s best economists, accounting experts and mathematicians, it is clearly time to look within to pull together the best available evidence to inform the debate. Select a single source for each and put together a report with a single price tag on each policy scenario – while noting the limitations of estimates and forecasting, as all models do. The sector has shot itself in the foot with disunity over many issues, but a drastic reduction in international enrolments is something that would have a negative impact on virtually every institution.
- Find cut through. It’s time to admit that efforts to sway the public and restore social licence have foundered. For a sector worth billions, it’s simply not responsible to address an existential crisis by allocating a couple of million to a campaign and hoping it reaches receptive ears. Let’s be serious. Social licence requires many things, but given the urgency of rebuilding recognition of the value of international education this year, before positions and votes are locked in for the next election, it requires a very clever, carefully polled and calibrated, and ultimately expensive campaign. This is not a vanity spend. When the government ran into the fuel crisis, they put $20m on the table straight away to convince us to fill up less often. That is a far simpler message than explaining the nuanced benefits of universities existing and/or international onshore enrolments. But it is a good indicator of the order of investment that is needed this year if the sector actually wants a say in its own future. That’s only $1m for the top end of town and $20-$500k for the rest, if contributions are calibrated according to annual results. That’s an incredibly cheap investment compared to the plummeting revenue institutions face if high-level visa cuts become law.
- Stop focusing the argument on campus. There will always be a disaffected student or lecturer to moan about standards, regardless of whether they are representative or accurate. The debate will be won and lost around Australia’s kitchen tables, not in the ivory towers. Boost Third Party advocacy. If the only people talking about the decline of international education are people perceived to be self-interested from the sector, the argument is already lost. Universities talking about how they are worried they might lose several billion doesn’t cut through. Businesses describing how they need workers, Cancer patients saying they need treatment, small businesses saying they need accountants – these are going to be much more impactful in advocating. They all need to receive and believe the core evidence base and need to actually believe things will get worse for them if numbers drop. Staff and course cuts don’t mean much if you are not a staff member, and you already have thousands of courses on offer. No longer being able to find a nurse for your ageing mum, an accountant for your ailing small business or an Uber Eats driver to bring your weekly take away purchases suddenly makes the student cuts more personal.
- Cite international experience. Canada has had a 27.5% drop in international students between 2023 and 2025 – from almost a million to 721,230. New US enrolments dropped by 20% in the Jan-March intake alone, as immigration restrictions start to bite. So Send a team to North America and write a report in the next few months. In addition to billions of dollars of extra funding required, the Canadians have found the impact very uneven, hitting smaller, lower status institutions hardest – an issue that is already starting to play out with international visa controls implemented here. The study should also take a good hard look at the impact of reduced enrolments on housing – and be transparent in quantifying the result, regardless of the outcome. Some have argued that the Canadian transition will force institutions into offering programs where they can prove value for grads. If this is the case, many will ask why that wasn’t already happening. Reports indicate an uneven and highly disruptive impact from the rapid cuts to international visas in Canada and international enrolment cuts are forecast to strip $4.2 billion out of the public college system in Ontario alone by 2027-28.
Part of the work in developing a convincing alternative argument has already been done by the Canadian Auditor-General in a March report. Canada experienced a 121% rise in study permits between 2019 and 2024 and decided to limit numbers. However, in a great example of how governmental intention is not always matched by bureaucratic delivery, just over 50,000 of the 255,360 permits that government intended to grant under the new system were approved.
The Auditor-General noted that, “the department did not know why approval rates were lower than projected.”
Heavy reductions in visa approvals from 2024 had led to unexpected negative consequences, the Auditor-General found.
Visa approvals were considerably lower than forecast, and the biggest hits had been to regional areas, which traditionally find it harder to attract international students.
“Although reforms projected decreases in approved new study permits of 10% or less in Manitoba, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick—and increases in Newfoundland and Labrador and Saskatchewan—all experienced a 59% or greater decrease in approvals in 2024 compared with 2023,” the report stated.
The Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada also identified 153,000 students who may have breached their visa, but only had funding to investigate 2,000.
The A-G’s report is a must-read for anyone still wondering whether hyper-regulation of the post-school education sector poses any implementation hazards.
Meantime, it is patently clear a new plan is required to mount an effective, evidence-based informational campaign demonstrating the value of international students to Australians beyond those who work on campus.
Who is up for a fact finding mission to Ottawa?
Tim Winkler has worked with 35 tertiary institutions over the past two decades and is Publisher of Future Campus.