Universities earned more than $10 billion in international student fees in 2019 – a record 27 per cent of their revenue – but as a consequence when the data for 2020 and 2021 is released universities will show "a fall from a great height", says commentator Andrew Norton.

Two universities, Monash and Sydney, raked in more than a billion dollars each from fee-paying overseas students in 2019. International students contributed more than $3.5 billion in fees alone to the Victorian economy, and $3.3 billion to NSW.