The surprise decision by the Albanese government to more than double the cost of international student visa applications to a non-refundable $1,600 is the latest blow to Australia’s universities.
The new fee is up from $710 — a 225% increase — and is now by far the highest price compared to Australia’s global competitors. Student visa fees are $278 (US$185) in the United States, $164 (CA$150) in Canada, $342 (NZ$375) in New Zealand and $931 (£490) in the United Kingdom.
It comes as controversial caps on international student numbers are set to be debated in Parliament and visa approvals, especially from major recruiting nations India and Nepal, have plummeted. The government is mulling forcing universities to build more accommodation for students, one of 47 recommendations from a landmark (but yet to be funded) universities accord unveiled in March.
“What other ways will they come up with to screw us?” one senior university administrator told Crikey.
The combined effect of the changes will hit the revenues of Australia’s universities, especially those that are overly reliant on foreign students. It could also flow onto further job losses in the sector. In the decade before COVID-19 hit in 2020, there was 137% growth in international student revenue with 40% of the entire sector’s annual student revenue coming from international students. While student numbers and revenue slumped during the pandemic, they have surged since. In February there were a record 713,144 international students in Australia, up from 664,178 in September 2023, although numbers have fallen again since then.
“Already the number of international students granted visas to come to Australia has decreased dramatically, with student visa grants down 34% in March compared to the same time in 2023,” Melbourne University deputy vice-chancellor Michael Wesley said recently.
Some of the policies are clearly related to political rather than educational imperatives and underscore the fact that international education has become inextricably entangled with immigration. The government is under pressure to put the brakes on immigration after arrivals surged by one third in 2023 to a record 765,900. The Coalition has promised to dramatically cut immigration if it wins next year’s election, although it remains unclear by how much.
It’s telling that the new visa fees were announced by Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil rather than her education counterpart Jason Clare.
“We never used to call students migrants, but somehow along the line, we confused students and migrants so the Immigration Department decided to give up their migration policy and hand it over to international students,” one long-time university administrator told Crikey.
The proposed caps are problematic, especially as the government won’t say what they are and exactly how they will be applied. The education minister wants unprecedented discretion to act at a university and even course level.
“These caps are penalising the sector for a temporary, larger-than-expected increase in student numbers due primarily to the pandemic lag effect,” Wesley said
This policy conflation has left industry insiders wondering if the government actually has any idea what it is doing with a bewildering string of reforms in the higher education sector in the past 12 months. In the UK, similar policies have made scores of universities insolvent and seen top institutions slide down world rankings.
“The parallel to the UK is very real,” a veteran education agent based in Hong Kong told Crikey.
“Firstly, ageing demographics are against higher education … Major changes to student migration or just visa pathways generally could see a whole bunch of unis go under. [Australia] doesn’t have the same risk probably in ours as the number of institutions is much smaller (42 compared to about 166 in the UK) but even if our universities were solvent, what would this mean for their research investment?”
Research is the main factor in international university rankings conducted by a number of organisations led by the Times Higher Education and Quacquarelli Symonds. Rankings are a key factor in attracting top quality students — ergo, if rankings slide, overall international student quality falls, industry insiders explained.
But the universities themselves must also take a big share of the blame. Rampant international recruiting in the past decade has boosted revenues and seen the salaries of university vice-chancellors and senior, mainly non-academic, staff soar beyond our best paid politicians and bureaucrats. Five of Victoria’s eight universities paid their vice chancellors more than $1 million last year, with Monash University’s departing Margaret Gardner topping the list with $1.57 million. University of Sydney’s Mark Scott led the pack in NSW with nearly $1.2 million.
Yet these same executives have evidently failed in the key task of lobbying the government, and there is little sign that they have developed business models that are flexible enough to deal with changing policies that insiders say “were obviously coming”.
The new visa caps are clearly aimed at South Asian countries where restrictions have already been placed on a number of countries, even provinces. There have been questionable practices by many entrants in terms of using visas for migration and even human trafficking purposes. The exploitation of the system was explored in a report by former Victorian Police commissioner Christine Nixon. To underscore this, in the media release for the updated visa fees, Immigration Minister Andrew Giles said: “Our reforms will help vulnerable workers speak up, while we crack down on employers doing the wrong thing.”
But the university administrator Crikey spoke to questioned whether the fee rise “would deter crooks”.
“I don’t think so, it will only deter genuine but financially struggling students who have choices about where they will study.”
