Visa chaos ‘turning students off Australia’

Visa processing chaos has made Australia less attractive to foreign students, and the situation is set to get worse, according to an international education analyst.

Keri Ramirez said processing delays and soaring visa refusal rates were only part of the problem for Australian educators, with visa applications also in decline.

“Students are saying, ‘I’m not going to take the risk – I’m going to look for other options’,” he told a webinar hosted by his Studymove consultancy. “This is just the start.”

Mr Ramirez said 27 per cent fewer higher education visas had been granted since last October than in the corresponding period 12 months earlier. The English college and vocational training sectors had suffered even steeper falls of 45 per cent and 76 per cent respectively.

The monthly rejection rate for higher education visa applications lodged offshore has averaged 21 per cent since mid-2023, compared with typical rates of 5 to 10 per cent, according to the latest statistics from the Department of Home Affairs (DHA), which cover the period until February this year.

Mr Ramirez said visa applications had so far declined only in the English-language sector, in which students tend to choose where to study relatively quickly. But he expected a “lagging effect” in vocational and higher education.

People who had already secured university enrolments would be disinclined to change their plans, he said. But those yet to decide their study destinations might be put off Australia as the news circulated about processing delays and baffling rejections.

A March survey by the international student recruitment firm AECC suggests this might already be happening. Of the 8,300 mostly prospective students quizzed by AECC, 1,280 had changed their minds about where to study over the previous year.

Many had turned away from Australia, Canada and the UK – three countries that have made harsh changes to student visa settings – and opted instead for Germany, New Zealand and the US.

Mr Ramirez’s analysis shows that visa applications from four countries that previously featured among Australia’s top six higher education source markets – India, Nepal, Pakistan and Bhutan – had fallen significantly amid rising refusal rates. Lodgements also declined from Kenya and the Philippines, previously the 10th and 13th top source countries.

Five of these six nations now carry the highest DHA immigration risk rating of level 3. Bhutan has a level 2 assessment.

Mr Ramirez said the declining visa applications had coincided with an abrupt change in the political and social “narrative” around international education. “When we started in 2023, it was all about skill shortages and how we could engage with international students to reduce that gap. But things change, and change quite quickly. About June, July…we moved from talking about skill shortages to affordability of housing and cost of living.”

Interest from three nations – Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Vietnam – has bucked the trend, spawning significantly more visa applications despite increases of around six percentage points in their visa refusal rates. Lodgements from China, whose visa refusal rate has remained very low, have increased by almost 5,000 since October.

Visa application and approval rates have remained fairly steady at the other top-20 source markets of Brazil, Colombia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand and the US.

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com