QUT vice-chancellor addresses foreign student ‘phantoms’ and ‘course-hoppers’

QUT’s vice-chancellor has blamed the poaching of foreign students by private providers as the reason almost half of its new international students dropped out or failed to show up.

Queensland University of Technology vice-chancellor Margaret Sheil.

You can now listen to The Australian's articles. Give us your feedback.

You can now listen to The Australian's articles.

Queensland University of Technology’s vice-chancellor has blamed the ease with which foreign students could previously get into the university, and the subsequent poaching of those students by private providers, as the reason almost half of its commencing international students dropped out or failed to show up.

The Australian revealed last week that QUT’s retention rate of international students “dropped to an unusual and historic low of 53.6 per cent because of an unusually high number of students who did not meaningfully engage from the outset”, as reported in its 2024 annual report. The figures refer to the retention rate of its commencing 2023 cohort.

Margaret Sheil said ahead of the 2023 school year, QUT had the lowest “risk rating” – which meant prospective students needed lower financial capability and English proficiency to enter the university. QUT, however, still charged high fees.

This meant foreign students could easily get a student visa to attend QUT, which became the target of migration agents. Once in the country, foreign students might move to another higher education provider because they could not pay the high fees.

Professor Sheil also said when it came time for the 2024 school year, 900 students didn’t show up at all because they couldn’t get their visas processed in time, as a result of a new government visa processing direction that came into force in December 2023.

QUT had moved up from a level 1 to a level 2 “risk” at the end of 2023 and this Ministerial Direction gave higher priority to lower-risk universities.

Professor Sheil assured The Australian these cohorts of international students were an anomaly. QUT moving up a risk level, she said, made it harder for non-genuine international students to enter the university.

“It was a change in demand, intersecting with a visa regime, which has now been addressed at the university level and with government changes. It was a one-off,” she said.

“QUT has introduced targeted measures to ensure students who enrol are committed to completing their courses, including more robust screening processes before offers are made. We also offer a broad range of academic and co-curricular support to enhance the student experience and drive success.”

“To date, the 2025 trend has been positive – international admissions are rising, visa processing is faster, more students are commencing without deferrals.”

Griffith University in Brisbane also reviewed its network of offshore student recruitment agents, after one in four foreign students dropped out of study last year. Griffith suggested students were course-hopping to other education institutions after six months of study.

Federal Education Minister Jason Clare last week said the “poaching of international students is a big issue” still. He blamed the Coalition for blocking Labor’s legislation last year to ban migration and education agents from pocketing commissions to poach students from universities and enrol them in other institutions.

Opposition education spokeswoman, Sarah Henderson, said the Coalition had supported the integrity measures but Labor had withdrawn the bill after the ­Coalition said it would not support the plan to ­impose quotas on international students for every university.