The international education industry is big business.
Australia has the 2nd highest share of international students globally, trailing only behind Luxembourg.
Those hundreds of thousands of students bring in about $30 billion to the economy each year, making it Australia’s fourth-largest industry according to Bureau of Statistics data.
Or, as Education Minister Jason Clare puts it, “the biggest export we don’t dig out of the ground”.
This will equate to about 7,000 fewer commencements than in pre-pandemic times and about 53,000 less than last year, according to government analysis
Universities Australia chief executive Luke Sheehy issued a stark warning earlier this month: If international student visa approvals continued on their current trajectory, 14,000 university workers could lose their jobs.
The calculation is based on two key figures. The first is the estimate that every four international students support one staff member with their fees. The second is that in the most recent financial year, the number of student visas for people attending higher education institutions had fallen by 60,000 compared to the one before.
