The Federal Government has capped international student enrolments in 2025 at 270,000 for vocational and higher education courses. Education Minister Hon Jason Clare MP stated that the cap will reduce the number of enrolments to pre-pandemic levels.
The Government argues that this measure will ease the cost-of-living pressures, particularly in the rental market. Immigration took one of the hardest hits when Covid-19 closed Australian borders in 2020, with labour markets and educational institutes pleading with the government to address the situation.
Now, Minister Clare estimates that post-pandemic, there are around 10% more international students in Australian universities and around 50% more students in vocational education institutes.
Minister Clare said the Government would inform organisations of their specific enrolment caps. The cap, which applies on an institution-by-institution basis, will see larger university enrolments go backwards, but smaller universities and vocational providers will increase.
The proposed changes stipulate that new international student enrolments will be capped at 145,000 for universities, similar to the student intake in 2023. 95,000 places are kept for practical and skills-based courses per year, which is slightly higher than the sector’s historic first-year intakes.
International education is Australia’s fourth-biggest export, worth more than A$36.4 billion to the economy in the 2022-2023 fiscal year. The University of Melbourne and the University of Sydney have voiced concerns that these changes will significantly harm the sector, aiming for a negative fiscal impact and challenges to growth in the future. However, Moody’s Ratings sees a modest impact from the proposed cap on Australian universities and added that it does not constitute a material deterioration in the sector’s operating environment.
The Federal Government’s cap is a turning point for the international education sector, which has grown year-on-year and increasingly relies on international students to fund its operations, including the education of domestic students.