Indian students banned or limited as Australian unis crack down on bogus applicants

At least four Australian universities have introduced bans or restrictions on students from specific Indian states in response to a surge of applications from South Asia and an accompanying rise in what the Home Affairs Department described as fraudulent applications.

An investigation by The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald has obtained emails from within Victoria University, Edith Cowan University, Torrens University and Southern Cross University that show the crackdown on applications from Indian students.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on a chariot with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi before the fourth cricket Test between their nations in Ahmedabad in March.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Two other universities – the University of Wollongong and Flinders University – altered their entry process in March for overseas students from countries considered “high-risk” but both said they were not restricting enrolments from specific Indian states.

Australia is on track for its biggest-ever annual intake of Indian students, topping 2019’s high watermark of 75,000. But the current surge has prompted concerns from government MPs and the education sector about the integrity of Australia’s immigration system and the long-term impact on the nation’s lucrative international education market.

“The volume of students arriving has come back a lot stronger than anyone was expecting,” said Jon Chew from global education firm Navitas. “We knew there would be a lot of pent-up demand, but there has also been a surge in non-genuine students.”

With many applications deemed by universities not to meet Australian visa requirements that they be a “genuine temporary entrant” coming solely for education, universities are putting restrictions in place to pre-empt their “risk rating” being downgraded.

The Home Affairs Department keeps a confidential rating of each country, with each university and college also ranked. Students from countries with higher risk ratings are required to provide more evidence that proves they will not overstay their visa, not work more hours than allowed under their visa, and not use fraudulent material in their application.

Those universities that have restricted access to some Indian states are concerned Home Affairs will reduce their ability to fast-track student visas because of the number of applicants who are actually seeking to work – not study – in Australia.

Perth’s Edith Cowan University in February placed an outright ban on applicants from the Indian states of Punjab and Haryana, then in March, Victoria University increased restrictions on student applications from eight Indian states, including Uttar Pradesh (population 200 million), Rajasthan (67 million) and Gujarat (60 million).

“In an effort to strengthen the profile of students from areas where we have seen increased visa risks, VU will implement a higher level of requirements in some areas in India,” the university’s regional recruitment manager Alex Hanlon wrote to education agents.

A university spokeswoman said these additional requirements included “assessing gaps in applicants’ study history to determine if they are suitably qualified and prepared for international study in Australia and can support themselves adequately”.

Those restrictions came just days after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited India, in part to celebrate Australia’s education links and announce a new agreement with Australia’s universities and colleges that would, he said, herald “the most comprehensive and ambitious arrangement agreed to by India with any country”. Crucially, the agreement included a “mutual recognition of qualifications between Australia and India”, which will make travelling to either country for university study easier.

A spokeswoman for Adelaide’s Torrens University said it too was “now looking carefully at each area where our applications come from” after the university told The Times Higher Education in March that it was considering only “very strong” applications from Gujarat, Haryana and Punjab.

The University of Wollongong in March changed its “genuine temporary entrant” process for students from India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Lebanon, Mongolia, Nigeria and “other countries deemed a risk [of students not being a genuine temporary entrant] by the Department of Home Affairs”. However, a spokesman for the university said it had “rigorous entry criteria for all students, but we have not placed any requirements on students from India in addition to the standard entry criteria we apply to all international students”.

The deluge of applications from south Asia began after the Morrison government, in January 2022, removed a 20-hour per week limit on the amount of work students can do – meaning there were no longer any restrictions on how many hours students could work. The move encouraged those wanting a low-skill Australian work visas to apply to cheaper education institutions. The Albanese government will on July 1 reintroduce this work limit, but lift it to 24 hours a week.

The Age and the Herald has confirmed with four universities, or in one case agents working on a university’s behalf, that they have put restrictions on students wanting to come to Australia from India. Another list seen by The Age and the Herald and authored by one Australian education agency, showed 12 universities and colleges had put in restrictions. The agency asked not to be named for fear it would damage its relationship with education providers.

It is not just universities that are grappling with a surge in applications from people seeking to work in Australia and gain permanent residency – rather than studying – in Australia. The vocational education sector is also seeing a surge in applications from students ultimately judged to be too risky to accept.

Under the process for getting a student visa, education providers accept applicants who are then assessed by Home Affairs. In February, Home Affairs rejected an unprecedented 94 per cent of offshore applicants from India to study in Australia’s vocational sector. It compared to less than 1 per cent of student applications from countries including the United States, the United Kingdom and France. In 2006, when Home Affairs started publishing records of this nature, 91 per cent of applicants from India were accepted.

The international students pouring back into Australia fuel an overseas education industry worth about $40 billion annually, trailing only iron ore, coal and natural gas as an export.

The University of Sydney took $1.4 billion of revenue in 2021 from fee-paying overseas students, Monash University collected $917 million in tuition fees while the University of Queensland got $644 million, federal education department figures show.

“Many universities, like Monash, Melbourne, Sydney and the University of New South Wales, already receive more revenue from international students than from domestic students,” said Peter Hurley, director of Victoria University’s Mitchell Institute. “International education is an incredibly valuable resource. It is really important that we manage it properly so that it works in everyone’s interests, especially international students.”

Hurley said international students provided both students for the nation’s higher education sector, and workers for Australia’s booming jobs market. “We need this workforce,” Hurley said. No Australian university could now function without international education revenue, he said, noting international students provide some institutions with three times as much in tuition fees as a domestic student.

The Department of Home Affairs, which manages Australia’s student visa system, said in a statement that since the phased re-opening of the nation’s international borders in 2021, “we witnessed an increase in incomplete applications and presentation of fraudulent information and documentation in student visa applications”.

“We understand that student visa refusal decisions are a cause of concern, not just for those seeking to study in Australia, but also to education providers and all others who rely on the arrival of international students for economic reasons or otherwise,” the statement said.

The restrictions on students from some Indian states have also put the spotlight on the lucrative work of education agents – the recruiters who work for Australia’s universities and vocational training colleges – and whether they are taking vulnerable international students for a ride.

Applications to Australian universities from international students are almost entirely facilitated by education agents, who are subject to little government regulation – although universities and colleges can terminate their contracts if they behave inappropriately. Universities and training organisations pay education agents commissions worth thousands of dollars for every student enrolment that they arrange.

Bijay Sapkota, a former international student and ex-president of the Council of International Students Australia, is now an advocate for students coming to study in Australia.Credit: Peter Rae

Education agent Ravi Singh said too many of Australia’s training colleges had become “visa factories” interested in offering immigration pathways, not an education.

Singh’s company Global Reach is a high-profile firm among hundreds of education agents competing for a slice of Australia’s international student intake from countries including China, India, Nepal, Colombia and Vietnam. It is an enormous market, with 584,000 people now in Australia on student visas and hundreds of thousands more working after finishing their studies. Universities Australia chief executive Catriona Jackson said education agents were vital in facilitating the flow of international students from more than 144 countries to Australia. “Education is the biggest export we don’t source from the ground,” she said.

Others though warned that these students weren’t always aware of where the money they paid to Australian education institutions went. “Students would be shocked if they knew how much some agents are demanding [in commissions]“, said federal Labor MP Julian Hill, once the head of international education for the Victorian government and now a member of a parliamentary inquiry looking at international education, which will hold its first Melbourne hearing on Tuesday.

Interviews with students from India, China, Vietnam, the Philippines and Nepal reveal their main complaints are about being misled by education agents on their working rights once they arrive in Australia or the quality of the school they will attend.

Victorian federal MP Julian Hill.Credit: Elke Meitzel

Former international student Bijay Sapkota said it was common for education agents to direct students to colleges delivering the highest commission rather than the best or most suitable institution for the student. “They won’t prefer an institution that has better quality – they will instead send students to one that gives them a higher percentage commission,” he said.

Other times, the advice is so misguided students are counselled to enroll in courses they might not need.

William – who asked that his surname not be used – worked as a pastry chef in Taiwan and migrated to Australia after an education agent advised him to enroll at Melbourne’s William Angliss Institute of TAFE to get a patisserie certificate.

The course cost about $16,000 and although he said it was “excellent”, he learned after completing the diploma that he could have used his previous experience to support his application for an Australian work visa, rather than undertake the training. “I didn’t need to spend years and so much money studying for an Australian diploma,” he said. “My agent didn’t tell me [about credit for prior learning] because their business was to sell Australian education programs.”

Phil Honeywood, the chief executive of the International Education Association of Australia.Credit: Chris Hopkins

Hill believes the federal government must consider greater regulatory oversight of agents who recruit students, particularly to vocational colleges, to stamp out poor advice and discourage weak applications.

“Students are vulnerable consumers,” Hill said. “Protections for students need to be strengthened to ensure agents act in their best interests. And there needs to be a mechanism to kick dodgy agents out of the system. There’s also a strong case for transparency in agent commissions to drive better behaviour and potentially banning certain practices, such as kickbacks. None of this is realistically achievable without light-touch registration of some sort.”

A spokesman for the federal Department of Education said universities and colleges were “responsible for the actions of those they engage to represent them”.

The International Education Association of Australia also wants more regulation of education agents. “No government has ever done that, Liberal or Labor,” said chief executive Phil Honeywood, a former Victorian state Liberal MP.

Honeywood said education agents should be regulated, as is required of migration agents, who can be barred from practising if they do the wrong thing.

Asked by The Age and the Herald if more regulation was needed of education agents working in Australia, a federal education department spokesman said: “The department is aware of concerns regarding the behaviour of some education agents and is in discussion with the sector about possible approaches to strengthening oversight arrangements.”