International students turned away in record numbers

Australia is on track for a steep fall in net migration after federal officials turned away thousands of overseas students who applied to start courses this month, bringing student visa grants down by 20 per cent in the biggest shift in two decades.

The cut to the education program is the biggest single factor in driving the total migrant intake down to 375,000 this financial year and putting it on course for 250,000 the following year.

The government has slashed international student visa numbers.Credit: Louie Douvis

The government’s migration strategy unveiled last year has imposed stronger English-language tests on students and requires them to prove they are genuine students before they enter the country, while making it harder for them to stay if they do not find jobs that help fill a skills shortage.

The government remains open to more controversial measures, such as a cap on student numbers or higher fees on their visa applications.

The cuts to student visas are not being felt across all universities. The biggest impact is at private colleges with low ratings for visa approvals and some universities are also writing to overseas applicants to cancel their applications because they will fail a tougher visa test put in place last year.

Most of the country’s leading universities are not seeing any big fall in overseas student numbers, the latest results show, because they have not fallen foul of the stricter tests within the department.

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil sent a formal instruction to the Department of Home Affairs last year, known as Ministerial Direction 107, to tell officials to put a priority on student visa applications for universities with a good track record and to give the lowest priority to those for institutions with a history of problems.

This means the priority takes into account the track record of all overseas students at each institution so they are given a low ranking if they have had a large number of visa refusals, fraudulent applications or students who overstay their visas.

All the Group of Eight universities are in the “tier one” category in this new system, while the “tier three” group at the lowest level of the system is mainly made up of private vocational education colleges.

Australia has more than 650,000 overseas students and an increasing number of them are prolonging their stay by applying to do a second course, with 150,000 of the total being on their second student visa.

The results from the department show that overseas students are being turned away in record numbers because the visa grant rate has been driven down to 80 per cent, the lowest since records began in 2005.

In a rare fall, the student visa grants in December were lower than in November – a sign of fewer arrivals for the coming academic year – and are 20 per cent below the same period last year.

The outcome shows the department is bringing international student visa grants down from 370,000 last financial year to 290,000 this year and believes there is a reasonable chance the outcome will be slightly lower.

The new migration figures provide the first outcomes from the dramatic shift last year when the Coalition accused Labor of planning a “big Australia by stealth” and the government vowed to lower the intake and crack down on dubious visa claims.

Opposition immigration spokesman Dan Tehan criticised O’Neil for presiding over the biggest influx of overseas students as well as a record migrant intake last year.

“Labor says they don’t want a Big Australia but under the Albanese Government 900,000 people will arrive over two years and 1.625 million will arrive over five.”

O’Neil said the country could not sustain the big increase in migration after the borders were opened at the end of the pandemic. “Migration is too high and our government has taken action to bring it back to normal levels,” she said.

“The early signs are that these changes are working. We are seeing sharp decreases in numbers. This is led by deep cuts in the areas of higher education, where we have unfortunately seen widespread integrity issues.”

Another key factor in driving the migration intake down is a special program called the Pandemic Event Visa, which was introduced by the previous government with no fees and no skills test and attracted more than 100,000 people.

Labor closed the pandemic program to new applicants last year and expects 60 per cent to leave the country and the remainder to shift to other visas because they have skills that are in demand and jobs that pay above the $70,000 salary threshold for approval.

The skills program is not expected to see a big fall in visa approvals, given warnings from employers about a shortage of workers, and the government is not expressing concern about the number of backpackers and tourists who gain visas to do temporary jobs before they return home.

Net migration surged to 510,000 last financial year as students returned after the end of pandemic restrictions and foreign workers took up job offers, placing immense political pressure on the government to impose stricter rules.

O’Neil has vowed to bring migration down to normal levels over time. The intake was 239,600 in the year to June 2019, months before it was halted during the pandemic.

In one example of the shift in education, the University of Wollongong has written to some of its overseas students in recent days to tell them to withdraw their applications because they will not gain their visas.

“Unfortunately, the Australian government has recently implemented substantial changes to its migration strategy,” the university said in its email to students, first reported by education news site Koala News.

The University of Wollongong declined to comment on the number of students it was turning away but said the Department of Home Affairs had applied strict rules.

“The University of Wollongong welcomes this approach and works in strict alignment with [Department of Home Affairs] guidance and continuously monitors compliance risks,” it said.

The chief executive of the International Education Association of Australia, Phil Honeywood, said the impact was already being seen on visa applications from India, Nepal and Pakistan. “The numbers are definitely down but it is going to take some months to see how that plays out,” he said.

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