Foreign student caps to cost 14,000 jobs, universities warn

Universities Australia has revealed the impact of cuts to international student numbers.

A crackdown on international student enrolments will cost jobs, Universities Australia has warned a Senate inquiry. Picture: John Feder

Vexed vice-chancellors have warned of 14,000 job losses as federal government cuts to international student numbers slash revenue for teaching and research.

Universities Australia chief executive Luke Sheehy slammed the government’s “rushed policy” to ration the number of international students who could be enrolled at each university and private training college, starting in January next year.

He told a Senate inquiry into the government’s draft legislation on Tuesday the university sector had already lost 60,000 students as a result of a 23 per cent reduction in visas granted to international higher education students during the past year.

He said the cut was “creating significant financial anxiety and pain for universities’’.

“It would represent a $4.3bn hit to the economy and could cost the university sector alone over 14,000 jobs,’’ he said. “Using students as cannon fodder in a poll-driven battle over migration and housing simply doesn’t add up.

“The government has taken a sledgehammer to the international student education sector.’’

A loss of 14,000 jobs would equal 10.7 per cent of the university workforce nationally.

University of Melbourne vice-chancellor Duncan Maskell said foreigners made up 45 per cent of all students. He warned that limiting numbers to 40 per cent would “cost us over $1.5bn over a five-year period’’.

Luke Sheehy, Universities Australia chief executive, has warned of job cuts.

National Tertiary Education Union president Alison Barnes called on university management to rule out any job cuts.

“Threatening to slash 10 per cent of the university workforce as a bargaining tool against the federal government is a cruel and callous way to treat staff,’’ she said. “It is absolutely outrageous for the vice-chancellors lobby group to be threatening the jobs of 14,000 academic and professional staff who are an indispensable part of our higher education system.

“Uncertainty around these changes have created a vacuum allowing opportunistic vice-chancellors to put job losses on the table.’’

Independent Tertiary Education Council Australia deputy chief executive Felix Pirie said some private training colleges already were sacking staff. He said at least 10 providers “have all started making redundancies, and two plan to close campuses in the next three months’’.

He said capping international enrolments at 40 per cent of students – an idea that has been floated but not confirmed by the federal government – “would be a job killer for Australians working in those providers’’.

Independent Higher Education Australia chief executive Peter Hendy said caps on foreign student numbers would send some private training colleges broke. “They would go under … it would be a catastrophic event for those involved,’’ he said.

Group of Eight chief executive Vicki Thomson said universities were “shaping up to be the fall guy’’ for public concern over housing shortages and crime.

“The rationale for capping international students chops and changes,’’ she told the hearing in Canberra. “It’s either the housing crisis, the cost of living, rental affordability and availability, redistribution of students to regional areas or the removal of shonks, crooks and dodgy providers.

“The archetype of shonks and crooks is not representative of the university sector, and certainly not the Group of Eight.’’

The federal government is refusing to tell universities how it plans to cap the numbers of international students, with a spokesman for federal Education Minister Jason Clare ruling out speculation he would ration international enrolments to 40 per cent of total student numbers at each university.

Home Affairs Department data shows 201,907 student visas were approved in 2023-24 to study in Australian universities, down from 261,317 the previous financial year.

Draft legislation, referred to a Senate inquiry, was torn apart by the Coalition and Greens senators at a hearing in Canberra on Tuesday, in a strong indication it will be blocked or heavily amended in the Senate.

Visa grant rates have already been affected by Ministerial Direction 107, by former home affairs minister Clare O’Neil, that prioritised visas for students deemed to be at low risk of overstaying.

Ms O’Neil more than doubled the visa application fee to $1600 and made it non-refundable.

Regional Universities Network chief executive Alec Webb told the Senate hearing the non-refundable fee “has left Australia as the most expensive destination in the English-speaking world for international students’’.

“It’s a casino-like gamble on who’s willing to take the risk,’’ he said. “Competitor nations now offer far more certainty at a far lower price.’’

Ms Thomson said the Go8 universities – Sydney, Melbourne, Queensland, Adelaide, NSW, Western Australia, Monash and the Australian National University – had already made 50,000 offers to foreign students to study in Australia next year.

ANU vice-chancellor Genevieve Bell told the inquiry “we might have to take the offers back’’.

Monash University vice-chancellor Sharon Pickering said universities had been so weakened by cost-cutting during the Covid-19 pandemic that “we’ve got nowhere to go’’.