Some anger, some relief over international student cap

The Albanese government’s proposed cap on international student numbers starting in the upcoming academic year has predictably drawn strong criticism, specifically from highly ranked urban universities and international higher education stakeholders.

But it has also found some support among smaller, regional institutions that stand to gain from it.

Minister for Education Jason Clare announced on Tuesday that the overall number of international students starting a course next year will be set at 270,000 including higher education courses and vocational education and training courses.

The proposal followed two days of public hearings for the Senate Committee’s Inquiry into the Education Services for Overseas Students Amendment (Quality and Integrity) Bill 2024 [Provisions] that will release its report on 6 September.

Clare said the level for international students being set for universities was “about 15% higher than it was before the pandemic. And the level for private vocational providers will be about 20% less. For universities all up, it means they'll be able to enrol about as many international students next year as they did last year, 2023. For some, it will be less, and for some it will be more”.

He said the “big winners” were regional universities. “Almost every regional university will be able to enrol more international students next year than they did last year,” he added.

The caps have been calculated with 2019 pre-pandemic enrolments at each public university as their base. For universities which increased enrolments of international students between 2019 and 2023, a formula applies, depending on their “international concentration” – the percentage of international student enrolments.

Individual institutional caps

As per the proposed strategy, each of Australia’s 1,400 universities and colleges registered to teach overseas students would have a specific cap on its enrolment limits.

“For some universities, some big universities, it will be lower than it was last year. For some of the smaller universities, some of the universities that have been hit hard by Ministerial Direction 107, it will be higher next year than it is this year,” he said.

He was referring to the framework introduced last year which prioritised the processing of visas for applicants to institutions considered to be at lower risk of visa fraud or abuse.

Signed in December 2023, the Direction aimed to reduce the surge in new students by denying large numbers of student visa applications mainly from low-income countries.

That framework, he announced, was revoked on Tuesday 27 August.

Clare said the new cap was “designed to build a better and a fairer” system. “The fact is, the universities I mentioned, like Newcastle, like the Wollongong, like the Griffith, like the Charles Darwin, like the La Trobe, like the University of Tasmania, they’re the sort of universities that have borne the brunt of Ministerial Direction 107,” he added.

“They’re the sort of universities that will benefit from building a better and a fairer way of setting levels for universities for international students,” he explained.

Clare said if universities do not fill their caps, the government can reallocate those places to universities where there is more demand.

Criticism from major universities

Australia’s Group of Eight (Go8), a conglomerate of eight research-intensive major universities with over 400,000 students, promptly rejected the caps, with Go8 CEO Vicki Thomson calling the move ‘reckless’ and damaging to the country’s global reputation.

“In defending the caps the minister has engaged in a clumsy sleight of hand by conflating Ministerial Direction 107 – a visa processing capacity issue of the Government’s own making – with caps.

“Caps will not undo the damage of Ministerial Direction 107 as international students simply will not study where the Australian Government tells them to.

“The Government has essentially responded to one reckless policy folly, Ministerial Direction 107, with another – punishing the Universities that have proven to be the most popular for the very best global students,” she said.

She stated the Ministerial Direction 107 had significantly damaged the global reputation of Australia’s international education sector and the introduction of caps would compound this damage.

Thomson also criticised Clare’s contention that the new system would mean it was not just “a lucky few universities that benefit from international education but … the whole sector”.

“To add insult to injury the Minister characterised institutions – including Go8 members – who as low-risk, high-quality providers in a global context have maintained international student numbers, despite the fiasco of Ministerial Direction 107, as ‘lucky’.

“Unfortunately, with today’s announcement it seems that this ‘luck’ has run out,” said Thomson.

A naïve proposition?

Neil Fitzroy, managing director of Australasia for international education company the Oxford International Education Group, said the proposed cap reflects the “confusion, chaos and contradictions” reigning in Australian higher education policy.

“Derived from a crude spreadsheet formula, the proposed caps seek to redistribute international student volumes from highly ranked metropolitan universities to smaller, regional universities. This is a naïve proposition in a globally competitive market and lacks understanding of student (and parent) decision making,” he said.

Fitzroy said if prospective students cannot enrol in their preferred course, university and city, “they’ll simply choose to study in another country”.

He said with four months until the end of calendar year, prospective students for 2025 intakes – including those with visas already issued, others already in Australia on a pre-sessional course, and those still deciding their study destination – have no further clarity on their future study plans.

The Australian government has implemented at least nine visa and migration rules in the past few months that have directly impacted international students while more changes are on the cards.

Commenting on this situation, Andrew Norton, professor in the practice of higher education policy at Australian National University, said while fairer visa processing will help some education providers increase their enrolments, capping popular universities below student demand won’t necessarily help other universities in Australia.

“Few students who want to attend high-prestige universities or want to live in large cities will go to lower prestige or regional universities instead.

“They just won’t come to Australia. At the end of 2025 we are likely to find many universities and other education providers have not reached their cap, pushing the total number of new students well below 270,000,” he noted in an article published by The Conversation.

Support from smaller universities

There was some support for the proposed cap, mainly from relatively smaller universities in smaller cities and regions.

The universities of Tasmania, Wollongong and Newcastle welcomed the caps and their favourable allocations.

University of Tasmania Vice-Chancellor Rufus Black labelled it as "sensible and coherent" to manage some of the post-pandemic immigration challenges while supporting the higher education sector, particularly in regional areas. His university will be allowed to enrol 2,200 students next year, up from 1,746 in 2023.

The University Newcastle will have its number increased slightly from 1,565 to 1,600, while Wollongong has been reduced from 4,387 in 2023 to 3,700 in 2025 – although that is up significantly on the 2,382 new students it enrolled this year. Charles Darwin University has been given an increase of 180 new students on its 2023 figure of 2,120.

Phil Honeywood, International Education Association of Australia chief executive, told the local ABC News outlet the caps were not as bad as some in the sector had feared.

“There are already some members saying their caps will allow them to keep their doors open and others who say they won’t be able to continue operating,” he said.

The caps would not directly resolve issues around integrity and poor practices, he said, since just limiting numbers would do little to keep out non-genuine students.

The proposed legislation is yet to pass the Senate, but it is likely to be supported by Australia’s opposition Coalition, which has promised even harsher cuts to overseas student numbers.

However, the Greens have categorically opposed it. Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi has described the caps as a “terrible policy” that stomped on university autonomy and student choice.

“The weak Albanese government is playing right into the fearmongering, dog whistling, racist agenda of the Coalition and putting migrants and international students in the firing line. It is disgraceful,” Faruqi said in a statement.

As of August 2021, about 1.2 million people were attending universities or other higher education institutions in Australia whereas half that – 601,901 – were attending vocational education institutions.

The number of international students studying in Australia totalled 717,587 for the January-May 2024 period, with 150,000 coming from China, the top source country, and more than 100, 000 from India.