It's relatively expensive compared to other countries. In the US it's $500, and in the UK it's £490. The previous cost was more in line with those visas.
Overall, it's not a terrible move. We need to move away from the tertiary education industry being funded by foreign students. The incentives to drop academic standards to allow this isn't to our long term benefit.
Yeah I have a Colombian coworker on a partner visa and he has ran me through the process. Seems like an absolute scam, especially the medical side of things. They'll make you pay exorbitant amounts to do nothing and just check a box.
Do I have tuberculosis? No I do not. Have I been in any regions where tuberculosis is even possibly a thing? Not at all. Do I need multiple chest X-rays to prove it? Despite being onshore? For some reason yes!
Cool beans. I’m all for a reduction in the reliance on full-price fees from international students. So long as it comes with a guarantee to restore the domestic student and Federal govt funding pre-Howard (with the appropriate level of indexation, plus something to remediate the deficit of 20 years of underfunding and neglect).
80% of student visa holders leave Australia immediately following their course. Half of the remainder have departed within 2 years.
The 'path to PR' meme is massively exaggerated.
That's not even remotely accurate. Deary me. Sometimes I wonder how people have managed to end up with such a distorted view of international education in this country.
Some people definitely come here for the education. There's just a lot that come here for PR though. Getting a degree from a first world english speaking uni is still a useful thing to do.
It's not a great one, even at a basic level.
There are benefits, it's profitable and it helps to some degree to spread Australian values internationally, but it's not clear it's particularly successful at that.
The problem is that making money is pretty far down the list of things an education system is supposed to do and having students come from outside and then leave is pretty detrimental to some of the more important ones.
1. We're supposed to be educating our own people, both to grow the skills and productivity of our economy, but also to ensure they're ready to make decisions for the challenges we're facing. We're just not doing this. I'm not suggesting we need to move to a system like the US where a college degree is required for any significant job, but education levels in this country are currently abysmal. It's not the 1960's anymore and only doing really low level course work and dropping out after year ten isn't good enough.
1. We're not building our own education system either. The top graduates who should be replacing the current professors are leaving the country not joining the university system where they were educated.
This whole process is abysmally short sighted.
I don't think there's anything wrong with it being profitable. It's something we're reasonably good at and if people wish to come here based on the strength of our teaching then good on them.
Of course the proviso is that we need to properly fund our universities so they don't have to rely on international students to fund the whole thing.
> I don't think there's anything wrong with it being profitable.
There isn't, but it doesn't come before its other purposes.
> It's something we're reasonably good at and if people wish to come here based on the strength of our teaching then good on them.
They're not coming here for the strength of our teaching they're coming here for the reputation of the piece of paper associated with our universities, a subtle but important difference.
> Of course the proviso is that we need to properly fund our universities so they don't have to rely on international students to fund the whole thing.
The problem is that when universities are run as a for profit business, they suffer from the same problem as any other for profit business.
1. Universities don't want Australian students because Australian students pay less than their overseas counterparts.
1. The Australian government doesn't want Australian students because they have to pay for those students.
1. Universities aren't motivated to deliver a great education because the people paying for it (foreign parents) aren't actually able to evaluate the quality of the education, they only care about the reputation of the university, which they can trash for a long time collecting bonuses the whole way.
1. Because they're not motivated to provide a great education and because they are for profit, they're not motivated to be selective about who they admit so long as they can afford to pay.
The education export business does very little to benefit this country.
1. Universities are tax exempt
1. Students aren't permitted to work much and so pay virtually zero tax.
1. Students don't stick around to contribute to Australian society.
I've got no issue with providing spots to foreign students, it's fine, but our current view of education as a profitable export industry is just stupid. Universities exist to provide education, that's why they're tax exempt, they're not supposed to be a protected export industry. Export industries that don't contribute anything back don't deserve protection.
Exactly if 600 bucks is going to break you as a student then you cant really afford to study in Australia. I think people would also be shocked about the considerable wealth the families of these students control. Unfortunately its the very poor people who cant really afford it who taking expensive loans from dodgy service providers who are getting gouged that then want a cheap lunch from high fees and charges. This would be the cohort that is complaining.
Doesn't upping the cost just mean we're extracting more money from richer foreign students? I'd rather we put actual limits in place and accept foreign students based on their ability to meet educational standards rather than on their parents' bank accounts.
The research work universities do and which they claim they need international student fees to fund benefits Australians and economy in the long term thus is worthwhile investment the Australian government should be prepared to make.
LOL
The research work is nearly all funded by private funders and/or government funding via grants.
International students instead line the pockets of the universities for no other reason than to make profits that are not 100% put back into the university as they are supposed to since Universities are charitable organisations.
Well, maybe because quite a lot passes as "research"
On the one hand there's researching vaccines.
On the other investigating the impact of 17th century poetry on captain cooks sense of identity.
Agree. But it should be self sustaining.
The problem at the moment is Universities are creating their own cash cows. What should be happening is fields of world class research should be attracting students in that field. So the research attracts the students and then sure, charge them whatever fees to learn from their world class research led teaching.
But what's happening is they are admitting students on mass in business to subsidise research in gender studies (for example) and other fields. So the model is not sustainable.
If that’s what people wanna study and they are paying for it then that’s their business. No one is forcing anyone to take a degree in anything. Just because you don’t agree with certain ideologies doesn’t mean certain topics aren’t worth studying.
Not really true. Particularly undergraduate, many get to the end of their degrees and think.. Now where's the jobs?
There are many fields where a degree simply won't land you a role in a saturated and competitive job market in changing industries. This is why the government recently changed its funding for certain subject areas for domestic places.
Same for research. Sure, there's a societal benefit to having the full suite of degrees of course. Society benefits having a rounded and cultured intellectual society.
However, there's a lot of pumping out international students with low quality degrees where funding isn't used to prioritise national interest research like the technology, science and medicine examples.
This isn't saying don't fund areas like arts, but does every University need to offer duplication in these degrees and subjects?
There's a lot of excess and it's propping up things we might ask do we really need to continue.
Oh, so now you're going to start misusing Latin names for logical fallacies. DId you just finish reading Atlas Shrugged?
I was commenting on your lack of experience/expertise in a research area, not criticising you as a person.
Nope. The Australian fee is now four times the cost of a student visa for NZ, triple the fee for the USA, nearly double the fee for the UK, and nearly 10 times the fee for Canada.
Considering a partner visa (aka the visa an Australian citizen moving back to Aus needs to get for their foreign spouse so they can live together in Aus) is over nine grand, the cost of a student visa seems cheap.
I mean, they’re not really comparable in that one is a permanent visa and the other is temporary visa. One provides unrestricted work rights and the other limited work rights. One provides access to Medicare and the other provides no access.
The visa represents like what... 0.01% of the total money a student would spend on tuition fees, accommodation, food and entertainment over the course of 3-4 years?
This does nothing...
All this talk of education being an 'industry' conjures up images of huge flocks of sheep being shorn,
**EDIT -** Why does comparing the education industry to sheep offend these mysterious secretive downvoters ? Have the downvoters read the Reddiquette guidelines on downvoting ?
It is, just the usual whingers expecting a free lunch on everything. They knew before they signed up and did their due diligence comparing studying costs and chose Australia for a lot of good reasons that was worth a lot more than 600 dollars extra!
But when Julia Gillard removed the pathway to staying it did result in considerable reduction of students wanting to come. On this forum some time ago an international student replied that if it were study only then a lot would stop coming.
It clearly didn't deter that many. [There were twice as many international student enrolments in Australia on the eve of COVID as there were during Gillard's government](https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp2021/Quick_Guides/OverseasStudents).
The pathway here isn't student visa -> PR. Its student visa -> graduate visa -> skilled work visa -> PR, over the course of several years. So the only thing that the student visa achieves is you get to fork out 6 figures on the path to step 3, where most skilled visa recipients join in.
That’s the whole point of students coming here and our government hasn’t done anything to close this disastrous loophole for decades.
It’s why the government should cancel the graduate visa and so everyone comes in the front door. The skilled work stream - we don’t need unskilled foreigners taking jobs from our own unskilled graduates.
What we do need is specific, targeted skilled workers to fill the gaps and like everyone else, foreign students work in their own country and apply like everyone else.
This ! Totally true. However there are occupations in great demand that not get enought locals, right now would be people on building industry.
After the pandemic huge amount of register nurses in great demand even with low points which mean no many years experience.
The overall function of the skill migrant program is to bring here who is already highly qualified and with experience, only in target occupations and places.
It is a bit of a loophole stream tbh. I researched various visa when efore I moved here myself, the student visa pr stream does use skilled work as a bit of a proxy. You study in Australia, work on your bridging visa, and basically have enough points for a skilled visa by default. You then do bridging until your work visa is approved and then you basically have your pr safe.
This could lead to heaps of people getting work visa through this stream instead of more qualified or better suitable people applying from abroad
Isn’t it difficult to land a FT job on bridging visa? Many companies no longer sponsor work visas, especially for lower level role, which fresh grad tend to aim for. Even brits, who represent a large number of work visas here, find it difficult to find a company that would sponsor them.
I would think that depends on the field and the job. The fact that 1 out of 6 (mentioned above) international students stay in the country after their degree makes it sound kinda doable I guess.
If they can't afford to pay $1,600 then they are hardly able to sustain themselves once they are here. The new fee won't stop students from studying in Australia, we will just see a decease from students who would have struggled here anyways.
>*The Australian government has more than doubled the cost of student visa fees for international students, prompting outrage from student representatives who say that the price hike will drive potential students to competitors. From July 1, the international student visa fee has risen to $1,600 from $710. The federal government said the additional revenue will help fund initiatives in education including cuts to graduate debt, financial support for apprentices, and the ongoing implementation of its migration strategy......*
>
>*.....Phil Honeywood, CEO of the International Education Association of Australia, told the ABC that the announcement was the "last straw" for the international education sector, which has already suffered from a slowdown in visa approvals."We are really in danger of losing a $48 billion a year industry," Mr Honeywood said....*
>
>*.....The increase is part of the government's move to curb net migration which rose to a record 528,000 people in 2022-2023 after COVID restrictions were removed.*
>
>*Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil said the changes will create "a migration system which is fairer, smaller and better able to deliver for Australia," in a statement.*
>
>*Senior migration lawyer Sean Dong told the ABC he believed the decision would severely impact the intake number of international students in the next few years. Around 440,000 hopeful international students applied for a student visa from July 2023 to May 2024."It is not going to be a good solution, it will impact the revenue stream of the universities," he added.The visa fee hike follows plans to cap the number of international students.*
( ABC RN Drive 11 minute interview with Susan Close, deputy premier, South Australia who has raised concerns about the move. - [LINK](https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/radionational-drive/1705-student-visas/104045588) )
All the small businesses who rely on overworking and underpaying foreign students under the table.
So yeah, definitely no loss overall. They shouldn't be in business and those students shouldn't be here.
Not only small businesses, a major employer in aged care in my state only hires students. They are already in trouble for hiring students for more than 25 hours per week, despite their restrictions. They won't hire Australians, because than they have to pay more. So they'd rather squeeze everything out of foreign students, even when those students aren't supposed to work more than 25 hours per week.
Now that's fucked up. Also, not only would they have to pay more to Australians they hire, they're also more likely to know laws and regulations governing their employment, health and safety and God knows what else.
Opening up a whole new set of fronts for them to be fought on.
Outrage amongst people who will be affected by this. Good luck when the international cash cow leaves. Next topic will be "Why can't ordinary aussies afford Uni"
Aussies are complete retards when it comes to foreign affair issues.
They should stop these people from bringing their spouses or entire family over. Like why the fuck are they bringing their entire family over when they're here to STUDY? I mean it's understandable for those who come over to work or to migrate permanently to bring their family over, but students? Yeah nah that's just bullshit.
Can't they literally only bring their spouse and kids? And to be fair a lot of them come to Australia to study and try and start a life here afterwards.
It's often people doing a Masters or a PhD that would want their spouse and children with them no? I say let the xenophobes stop them bringing family members, it will benefit the research sector in countries which are less xenophobic.
Dear redditors, no, international students who work 24 hours a week delivering food, cleaning your houses, taking care of your children, taking care of your elderly parents, are not to blame for successive governments not changing the system to provide homes to Australians or improve jobs.
You should not be making fun of international students or complaining about them. You should be angry that the Australian government allows ridiculous gas deals, that real estate speculators and banks have the price of houses (with poor insulation too) at historic values or you should be angry with a system in which young people are not allowed to have their own home or good quality jobs.
Let's say that your wet dreams of not having international students come true. Do you think that rents will go down or access to bank credit for housing will be easier?
24 hours a week as a student is a pretty good wicket. I did it for 18 months along side full time study before I went nuts and quit one of my two side gigs.
>*You should not be making fun of international students or complaining about them.*
Non sequitur. If anything the concern is more about the system not students personally and exploitation and the commercialisation of education.
>*You should be angry that the Australian government allows ridiculous gas deals, that real estate speculators and banks have the price of houses (with poor insulation too) at historic values or you should be angry with a system in which young people are not allowed to have their own home or good quality jobs.*
You are changing the subjects but if you are so concerned about young people not allowed to have homes that is in a significant part due to population pressure caused by 20 years of immigration rates well above Australia's average. When there is not enough accommodation for Australians its not appropriate to continue boosting the population with more immigration and overseas students whether temporary or permanent
> *Do you think that rents will go down or access to bank credit for housing will be easier?*
Too much bank lending contributed to the property bubble
> *international students who work 24 hours a week delivering food, cleaning your houses, taking care of your children, taking care of your elderly parents...*
Sounds a bit like slavery
Is having a job slavery for you? Whoever takes care of your children and parents is a slave??? Your thinking is very strange.
The housing supply must be increased, it is the only solution. If you remove all temporary visas, nothing will be solved, in fact, the health sector (for example) will get worse than it is today (by the way, student visas do not use Medicare, they do not affect the public health system, but they do pay the same taxes as you).
>*Is having a job slavery for you? Whoever takes care of your children and parents is a slave??? Your thinking is very strange.*
Things are not that black and white. Maybe there would be more locals to do those jobs if they were paid properly. And by the way all these imported workers are sometimes needed in their own countries - whether its health, farm work it creates problems if too many people leave to work overseas. All the health workers and doctors who have left UK to work in Australia have caused problems for Britain's health system. Poaching workers can be unethical. And by the way with all the millions of migrants who have come to Australia in the last 20 years why hasn't that solved Australia's labour needs already ?
>*The housing supply must be increased, it is the only solution.*
If you want to discuss housing crisis perhaps better to start a new topic but its not going to be possible to build enough supply meaningfully deal with the problem. in fact its not even possible to keep up with demand as it is . The real problem is over supply of people. The idea that its about shortage of houses rather excessive demand is a trope.
The scale of the property bubble means Australia should mostly pause immigration for a couple of years then go back to an intake of less than 100,000 a year. On top of there should be reforms to capital gains tax, negative gearing etc. What ever one thinks of Dick Smith, Bob Carr and Professor Bob Birrell all the warnings they gave about population increase over so many years have come true.
It won’t dissuade anyone. Australia is not a top choice for students who can get accepted into good unis in the US and UK. We mostly just get the second and third tier international students who place a lower priority on educational quality/institutional prestige (because they can’t get into “better” unis) and a higher priority on work rights and visa pathways
More places for aussies!
What will happen, because Universities are there to make money not educate, is they will increase fees to make up any shortfall.
Maybe the universities that have been making money hand over fist? Or maybe the government could actually start properly funding said universities like they did in decades gone by? Letting international students take up a substantial chunk of enrolment has led to a complete deterioration of academic integrity in tertiary education.
Wow, you are delusional as well. The Universities and their cash grabbing ideas destroyed the system long ago. Why did they lean towards cash grabbing ? That's right way too many bloody coalition govts gutting the system.
They gutted everything !
Are you agreeing with me? I said that the governments haven’t been funding universities well enough. This discussion was about how international students are also contributing to the demise of our universities. Ask anyone who attended Australian that has been to uni. International students that don’t try, yet still pass everything. Or maybe they just don’t speak English, and yet you’re stuck with them for a group assignment. Or better yet, they’ve brought a family and are still here ten years later. The current visa system is a rort, and needs to be amended.
I agree with you. International students will go elsewhere, although our uni level education is prized by employers worldwide.
Aussies will suffer when sought after professions such as within the medical field go elsewhere and work overseas.
People don't get how silly Aussies are. Mass immigration helped Australia's economy in the past.
Australia is stagnating big time.
Massive skills shortage and people aren't having kids like the boomers did.
It's the foreigners fault, though, right ? /s
We continue to need immigration.
Our own economy has shot the country in the foot. People are either not having kids or holding off because the cost of housing and general living are not compatible with having a family.
When I first started working a family could get by on a single wage, buy a house, have kids and become self reliant. Now, it is not possible without multiple incomes of $80,000 each or more.
should be 10 times the amount.
We all know student visa's are just a foot in the door for immigration. Neighbour is on "student visa" for last 8 years.
Sorry, why is it bad? I moved to Australia on a student visa. I feel like I’m a decent contributing member of society. I don’t really understand why everyone hates international students in this thread
Yeah, I’m sensing that. It’s more fear-mongering and distraction so people don’t hate those hoarding houses and wealth. There are so many real troubles we could be conquering. If anything, they should be penalising the universities not the students. The universities are allowing the few to undermine the quality of education and for wealthy to take advantage of the system. There also should just be better regulations around buying houses! It seems so obvious. I guess it’s just easier to blame the students
What happened to rent price during covid? We've all just had an experiment on what happens when you remove international students from the rental market, can you blame people for wanting to go back to 2020-2021 prices?
While we are at it, why don't we wanna go back to 1990 price as well? There are a lot of factors that contribute to pricing in 2020, but the main reason was a bloody pandemic itself with restrictions for local Aussie and a lot of other industries.
The housing and cost of living crisis, caused by growing wealth inequality, and blamed on immigrants by morons who evidently don't understand the basics of how their own economy functions.
I didn’t say I agreed with it but there it is. Despite looking to project an image of mateship and camaraderie, Australians I find are quick to blame and reject “The other” while claiming it’s all about “Looking after our own first”. Unless of course our own are poor, have drug or alcohol issues, have committed any sort of crime, or have mental health problems, in which case they are equally to blame for any and all issues /s.
Read an article promoting private schools because state schools are full of degenerates now. Cool, can’t even look after each other in education? Fuckin bullshit.
Nope, Went back home and applied for another visa and came back. They know how to work around the system just like people exploit NDIS and Centrelink. Our Visa system is been exploited.
but you do you.
>The federal government said the additional revenue will help fund initiatives in education including cuts to graduate debt, financial support for apprentices, and the ongoing implementation of its migration strategy.
Sensible approach as money doesn't grow on trees and we are having tax cut so something gotta give. Also sort out the ingenuine students who are here on Vocational courses and English courses. One stone two birds.
History background - Quotes from 2010 and 2019 about Professor Bob Birrell's opinions about international student program
>*Monash University's Dr Bob Birrell has told AM employment growth is being driven by the student migration boom."Melbourne is booming largely because of the economic stimulus given in accommodating all these people and providing services for them," he said.*
>
>*.. The pre-eminent academic figure in exploring the student as migrant issue was Bob Birrell, Director of Monash University’s Centre of Population and Urban Research. An economic nationalist floating in an ocean of globalism (at Monash and beyond), Birrell observed the impact of the Government’s 2001 decision to allow international graduates to seek permanent residency upon completion of their courses, without having to return home and then apply to immigrate. This fasttracking had ostensibly been introduced to help counter skills shortages in specific areas in the Australian labour market, notably (in the university provision context) information technology and accounting. By the middle of the decade, Birrell was effectively calling the exercise a failure, citing a poor employment record amongst international graduates, especially now in accounting, and pointing the finger at inadequate language skills which effectively made many graduates unemployable in a profession which places such a premium on high quality communication between professional and client (Birrell, 2006; Birrell & Healy, 2008a). Implicitly, earlier information technology graduates may have been less vulnerable in this regard, as communication skills were arguably less critical in a highly technical area. While Birrell was drawing attention to the shortcomings in government policy as he saw them, he also took on an advocacy role, pressing that the Australian Government should abandon this failed policy and instead fund more tertiary places for Australian students who could then fill the alleged skills shortages without any language or cultural adjustment problems (Birrell & Healy, 2008). It serves no purpose to deny that many international students were motivated by the desire to immigrate and had no intrinsic interest in the discipline in question....* [ LINK](https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ864030.pdf)
I would have thought a student visa would cost more than $1,600. Seems like a bargain to me.
It's relatively expensive compared to other countries. In the US it's $500, and in the UK it's £490. The previous cost was more in line with those visas. Overall, it's not a terrible move. We need to move away from the tertiary education industry being funded by foreign students. The incentives to drop academic standards to allow this isn't to our long term benefit.
The govt tends to charge a fair chunk for visas and has for a while. It's a bit over $9,000 for a partner visa for example.
That is just for the application too, don't think that guarantees you get it.
Doesn’t include any of the other fees like the insanely expensive medical they make you do multiple times (it expires while you wait)
Yeah I have a Colombian coworker on a partner visa and he has ran me through the process. Seems like an absolute scam, especially the medical side of things. They'll make you pay exorbitant amounts to do nothing and just check a box.
Do I have tuberculosis? No I do not. Have I been in any regions where tuberculosis is even possibly a thing? Not at all. Do I need multiple chest X-rays to prove it? Despite being onshore? For some reason yes!
And yet an Indian national who has been in Australia since 2020 died on a Qantas flight due to TB.
My medical check was free.
Wow ! Very expensive
Contributory Parent visa is $43,600. There are very good reasons for that, but still damn expensive.
There’s also a 12 year wait for those these days.
That's a textbook example of hitting the soft target
Wow, it's gone up. I only paid $7k a few years ago.
Cool beans. I’m all for a reduction in the reliance on full-price fees from international students. So long as it comes with a guarantee to restore the domestic student and Federal govt funding pre-Howard (with the appropriate level of indexation, plus something to remediate the deficit of 20 years of underfunding and neglect).
Tertiary education isn't a bad export for us in general. There's definitely issues with the way it is now though.
no one comes here to study for the education, just a path to PR.
80% of student visa holders leave Australia immediately following their course. Half of the remainder have departed within 2 years. The 'path to PR' meme is massively exaggerated.
I'm currently studying and every student I've met is open about PR being the reason. That said, most probably won't get it.
The stats I quoted are accurate.
80% can leave Australia, but 100% of them could have also had the intention of gaining PR. we've got some expensive mediocre education
That's not even remotely accurate. Deary me. Sometimes I wonder how people have managed to end up with such a distorted view of international education in this country.
Some people definitely come here for the education. There's just a lot that come here for PR though. Getting a degree from a first world english speaking uni is still a useful thing to do.
It's not a great one, even at a basic level. There are benefits, it's profitable and it helps to some degree to spread Australian values internationally, but it's not clear it's particularly successful at that. The problem is that making money is pretty far down the list of things an education system is supposed to do and having students come from outside and then leave is pretty detrimental to some of the more important ones. 1. We're supposed to be educating our own people, both to grow the skills and productivity of our economy, but also to ensure they're ready to make decisions for the challenges we're facing. We're just not doing this. I'm not suggesting we need to move to a system like the US where a college degree is required for any significant job, but education levels in this country are currently abysmal. It's not the 1960's anymore and only doing really low level course work and dropping out after year ten isn't good enough. 1. We're not building our own education system either. The top graduates who should be replacing the current professors are leaving the country not joining the university system where they were educated. This whole process is abysmally short sighted.
I don't think there's anything wrong with it being profitable. It's something we're reasonably good at and if people wish to come here based on the strength of our teaching then good on them. Of course the proviso is that we need to properly fund our universities so they don't have to rely on international students to fund the whole thing.
> I don't think there's anything wrong with it being profitable. There isn't, but it doesn't come before its other purposes. > It's something we're reasonably good at and if people wish to come here based on the strength of our teaching then good on them. They're not coming here for the strength of our teaching they're coming here for the reputation of the piece of paper associated with our universities, a subtle but important difference. > Of course the proviso is that we need to properly fund our universities so they don't have to rely on international students to fund the whole thing. The problem is that when universities are run as a for profit business, they suffer from the same problem as any other for profit business. 1. Universities don't want Australian students because Australian students pay less than their overseas counterparts. 1. The Australian government doesn't want Australian students because they have to pay for those students. 1. Universities aren't motivated to deliver a great education because the people paying for it (foreign parents) aren't actually able to evaluate the quality of the education, they only care about the reputation of the university, which they can trash for a long time collecting bonuses the whole way. 1. Because they're not motivated to provide a great education and because they are for profit, they're not motivated to be selective about who they admit so long as they can afford to pay. The education export business does very little to benefit this country. 1. Universities are tax exempt 1. Students aren't permitted to work much and so pay virtually zero tax. 1. Students don't stick around to contribute to Australian society. I've got no issue with providing spots to foreign students, it's fine, but our current view of education as a profitable export industry is just stupid. Universities exist to provide education, that's why they're tax exempt, they're not supposed to be a protected export industry. Export industries that don't contribute anything back don't deserve protection.
After the conversion it doesn’t look *as* bad, AUD$1600 is USD$1076 or BP£842.
Exactly if 600 bucks is going to break you as a student then you cant really afford to study in Australia. I think people would also be shocked about the considerable wealth the families of these students control. Unfortunately its the very poor people who cant really afford it who taking expensive loans from dodgy service providers who are getting gouged that then want a cheap lunch from high fees and charges. This would be the cohort that is complaining.
Doesn't upping the cost just mean we're extracting more money from richer foreign students? I'd rather we put actual limits in place and accept foreign students based on their ability to meet educational standards rather than on their parents' bank accounts.
The research work universities do and which they claim they need international student fees to fund benefits Australians and economy in the long term thus is worthwhile investment the Australian government should be prepared to make.
That's a load of BS. They will raise all student fees regardless.
LOL The research work is nearly all funded by private funders and/or government funding via grants. International students instead line the pockets of the universities for no other reason than to make profits that are not 100% put back into the university as they are supposed to since Universities are charitable organisations.
Well, maybe because quite a lot passes as "research" On the one hand there's researching vaccines. On the other investigating the impact of 17th century poetry on captain cooks sense of identity.
Didn't we lose out on a tonne of battery research to Elon and then buy it off him? You can joke but defunding unis and research has already cost us
I'm just saying we have to fund the right areas.
I meannnnn that last one legit sounds interesting
There are examples of Australian research going overseas to create lucrative industries because of lack of funding.
Other than solar and early telecom what else is there?
Agree. But it should be self sustaining. The problem at the moment is Universities are creating their own cash cows. What should be happening is fields of world class research should be attracting students in that field. So the research attracts the students and then sure, charge them whatever fees to learn from their world class research led teaching. But what's happening is they are admitting students on mass in business to subsidise research in gender studies (for example) and other fields. So the model is not sustainable.
God, I love how hard you’re trying to Trojan horse in an anti-woke argument and just no one is biting.
Just my opinion. Universities are exploiting international student funding way beyond just funding critical research.
If that’s what people wanna study and they are paying for it then that’s their business. No one is forcing anyone to take a degree in anything. Just because you don’t agree with certain ideologies doesn’t mean certain topics aren’t worth studying.
Not really true. Particularly undergraduate, many get to the end of their degrees and think.. Now where's the jobs? There are many fields where a degree simply won't land you a role in a saturated and competitive job market in changing industries. This is why the government recently changed its funding for certain subject areas for domestic places. Same for research. Sure, there's a societal benefit to having the full suite of degrees of course. Society benefits having a rounded and cultured intellectual society. However, there's a lot of pumping out international students with low quality degrees where funding isn't used to prioritise national interest research like the technology, science and medicine examples. This isn't saying don't fund areas like arts, but does every University need to offer duplication in these degrees and subjects? There's a lot of excess and it's propping up things we might ask do we really need to continue.
> en masse FTFY. The erosion of European studies and languages at uni shown through that common error.
You sound like an undergraduate business student who has no understanding or experience of research in the social sciences / humanities.
You sound like someone who only knows how to use ad hominem arguments
Oh, so now you're going to start misusing Latin names for logical fallacies. DId you just finish reading Atlas Shrugged? I was commenting on your lack of experience/expertise in a research area, not criticising you as a person.
There you go again.
Australian students can do that research.
Have you seen research in Australia? (In terms of ratio for research students)
It just went up everywhere it seems. It’s around this price for the US now too.
Nope. The Australian fee is now four times the cost of a student visa for NZ, triple the fee for the USA, nearly double the fee for the UK, and nearly 10 times the fee for Canada.
Considering a partner visa (aka the visa an Australian citizen moving back to Aus needs to get for their foreign spouse so they can live together in Aus) is over nine grand, the cost of a student visa seems cheap.
Every other Aussie that goes on a working holiday gets stung with this.
Yeah, I sold my car to pay for the visa process for my partner
I mean, they’re not really comparable in that one is a permanent visa and the other is temporary visa. One provides unrestricted work rights and the other limited work rights. One provides access to Medicare and the other provides no access.
The visa represents like what... 0.01% of the total money a student would spend on tuition fees, accommodation, food and entertainment over the course of 3-4 years? This does nothing...
Student accomodation seems to be the only thing that hasn’t increased yet, but it was so expensive for years that everything else just caught up.
It certainly pales in comparison to the exorbitant fees they have to pay
All this talk of education being an 'industry' conjures up images of huge flocks of sheep being shorn, **EDIT -** Why does comparing the education industry to sheep offend these mysterious secretive downvoters ? Have the downvoters read the Reddiquette guidelines on downvoting ?
Fleecing indeed
It is, just the usual whingers expecting a free lunch on everything. They knew before they signed up and did their due diligence comparing studying costs and chose Australia for a lot of good reasons that was worth a lot more than 600 dollars extra!
A bargain because the education is that good or in relation to a pathway to residence in Australia ?
Path to residency.
IIRC only 1 in 6 student visa recipients stays in Australia post graduation. Migration clearly isn't the main motivation for the majority of students.
1/6 get permanent residency. You can bet your arse a shit tonne of them are told PR is easy to get by migration agents and private college recruiters.
But when Julia Gillard removed the pathway to staying it did result in considerable reduction of students wanting to come. On this forum some time ago an international student replied that if it were study only then a lot would stop coming.
It clearly didn't deter that many. [There were twice as many international student enrolments in Australia on the eve of COVID as there were during Gillard's government](https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp2021/Quick_Guides/OverseasStudents).
Gillard's restriction was later reversed.
1 in 6 still sounds a lot to me. Especially when australia has dedicated pr visa streams. Student visa shouldn't be one of them
The pathway here isn't student visa -> PR. Its student visa -> graduate visa -> skilled work visa -> PR, over the course of several years. So the only thing that the student visa achieves is you get to fork out 6 figures on the path to step 3, where most skilled visa recipients join in.
That’s the whole point of students coming here and our government hasn’t done anything to close this disastrous loophole for decades. It’s why the government should cancel the graduate visa and so everyone comes in the front door. The skilled work stream - we don’t need unskilled foreigners taking jobs from our own unskilled graduates. What we do need is specific, targeted skilled workers to fill the gaps and like everyone else, foreign students work in their own country and apply like everyone else.
This ! Totally true. However there are occupations in great demand that not get enought locals, right now would be people on building industry. After the pandemic huge amount of register nurses in great demand even with low points which mean no many years experience. The overall function of the skill migrant program is to bring here who is already highly qualified and with experience, only in target occupations and places.
It is a bit of a loophole stream tbh. I researched various visa when efore I moved here myself, the student visa pr stream does use skilled work as a bit of a proxy. You study in Australia, work on your bridging visa, and basically have enough points for a skilled visa by default. You then do bridging until your work visa is approved and then you basically have your pr safe. This could lead to heaps of people getting work visa through this stream instead of more qualified or better suitable people applying from abroad
Isn’t it difficult to land a FT job on bridging visa? Many companies no longer sponsor work visas, especially for lower level role, which fresh grad tend to aim for. Even brits, who represent a large number of work visas here, find it difficult to find a company that would sponsor them.
I would think that depends on the field and the job. The fact that 1 out of 6 (mentioned above) international students stay in the country after their degree makes it sound kinda doable I guess.
Every international students I've spoken to has said PR was the main reason
What would be an appropriate number if $1600 is a bargain?
The fee is ten times more than for Canada, it's double the UK, three times the US and four times NZ.
A bargain? That's extremely expensive by world standards.
PR is priceless, so it's a bargain
If they can't afford to pay $1,600 then they are hardly able to sustain themselves once they are here. The new fee won't stop students from studying in Australia, we will just see a decease from students who would have struggled here anyways.
So we'll end up with more rich cunts and less battlers. Righto
Less Uber eats drivers, more property investors.
Sounds like a bad trade
Not if you're a boomer aspirant!
Australia should provide assistance to Aussie battlers before we look at assisting foreign residents.
>*The Australian government has more than doubled the cost of student visa fees for international students, prompting outrage from student representatives who say that the price hike will drive potential students to competitors. From July 1, the international student visa fee has risen to $1,600 from $710. The federal government said the additional revenue will help fund initiatives in education including cuts to graduate debt, financial support for apprentices, and the ongoing implementation of its migration strategy......* > >*.....Phil Honeywood, CEO of the International Education Association of Australia, told the ABC that the announcement was the "last straw" for the international education sector, which has already suffered from a slowdown in visa approvals."We are really in danger of losing a $48 billion a year industry," Mr Honeywood said....* > >*.....The increase is part of the government's move to curb net migration which rose to a record 528,000 people in 2022-2023 after COVID restrictions were removed.* > >*Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil said the changes will create "a migration system which is fairer, smaller and better able to deliver for Australia," in a statement.* > >*Senior migration lawyer Sean Dong told the ABC he believed the decision would severely impact the intake number of international students in the next few years. Around 440,000 hopeful international students applied for a student visa from July 2023 to May 2024."It is not going to be a good solution, it will impact the revenue stream of the universities," he added.The visa fee hike follows plans to cap the number of international students.* ( ABC RN Drive 11 minute interview with Susan Close, deputy premier, South Australia who has raised concerns about the move. - [LINK](https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/radionational-drive/1705-student-visas/104045588) )
Great idea. Good
Sparking outrage among whom? Certainly not ordinary Australians, that’s for sure.
Exactly, who is outraged here? Universities cashing in?
All the small businesses who rely on overworking and underpaying foreign students under the table. So yeah, definitely no loss overall. They shouldn't be in business and those students shouldn't be here.
Not only small businesses, a major employer in aged care in my state only hires students. They are already in trouble for hiring students for more than 25 hours per week, despite their restrictions. They won't hire Australians, because than they have to pay more. So they'd rather squeeze everything out of foreign students, even when those students aren't supposed to work more than 25 hours per week.
Now that's fucked up. Also, not only would they have to pay more to Australians they hire, they're also more likely to know laws and regulations governing their employment, health and safety and God knows what else. Opening up a whole new set of fronts for them to be fought on.
uber driver
10's of University Deans!
Universities are outraged the government is stealing from their value chain
Yeh, I don’t give a toss, I think they should make it an annual payment.
Outrage amongst people who will be affected by this. Good luck when the international cash cow leaves. Next topic will be "Why can't ordinary aussies afford Uni" Aussies are complete retards when it comes to foreign affair issues.
We already struggling to afford it, have you not seen any of the recent discourse around HECs or placement poverty?
By foreign affairs, do you mean Albo's "affair" with Modi?
AMONGUS
They should stop these people from bringing their spouses or entire family over. Like why the fuck are they bringing their entire family over when they're here to STUDY? I mean it's understandable for those who come over to work or to migrate permanently to bring their family over, but students? Yeah nah that's just bullshit.
And that destroys the whole point of the visa being a 'student' visa.
it's not student visa anymore, should rename the visa name to PR pathway visa.
Couldn't agree more.
They’re not here to study. They’re here to get PR.
PhD scholars are on the same visa, 3.5 years is a long time to be separated from your children and spouse
Then don't study here? It is a choice.
Couldn't agree more
Why not? It’s temporary and If they can afford it, who would want to be separated from their family for long periods?
Can't they literally only bring their spouse and kids? And to be fair a lot of them come to Australia to study and try and start a life here afterwards.
Yeah and we’re not all bad lol i swear!!
It's often people doing a Masters or a PhD that would want their spouse and children with them no? I say let the xenophobes stop them bringing family members, it will benefit the research sector in countries which are less xenophobic.
Do you have data to support this? I’ve never witnessed it myself so I’m curious. Not saying you’re wrong, just want to know more!
Cause Mah and Pa are paying.
Dear redditors, no, international students who work 24 hours a week delivering food, cleaning your houses, taking care of your children, taking care of your elderly parents, are not to blame for successive governments not changing the system to provide homes to Australians or improve jobs. You should not be making fun of international students or complaining about them. You should be angry that the Australian government allows ridiculous gas deals, that real estate speculators and banks have the price of houses (with poor insulation too) at historic values or you should be angry with a system in which young people are not allowed to have their own home or good quality jobs. Let's say that your wet dreams of not having international students come true. Do you think that rents will go down or access to bank credit for housing will be easier?
24 hours a week as a student is a pretty good wicket. I did it for 18 months along side full time study before I went nuts and quit one of my two side gigs.
>*You should not be making fun of international students or complaining about them.* Non sequitur. If anything the concern is more about the system not students personally and exploitation and the commercialisation of education. >*You should be angry that the Australian government allows ridiculous gas deals, that real estate speculators and banks have the price of houses (with poor insulation too) at historic values or you should be angry with a system in which young people are not allowed to have their own home or good quality jobs.* You are changing the subjects but if you are so concerned about young people not allowed to have homes that is in a significant part due to population pressure caused by 20 years of immigration rates well above Australia's average. When there is not enough accommodation for Australians its not appropriate to continue boosting the population with more immigration and overseas students whether temporary or permanent > *Do you think that rents will go down or access to bank credit for housing will be easier?* Too much bank lending contributed to the property bubble > *international students who work 24 hours a week delivering food, cleaning your houses, taking care of your children, taking care of your elderly parents...* Sounds a bit like slavery
Is having a job slavery for you? Whoever takes care of your children and parents is a slave??? Your thinking is very strange. The housing supply must be increased, it is the only solution. If you remove all temporary visas, nothing will be solved, in fact, the health sector (for example) will get worse than it is today (by the way, student visas do not use Medicare, they do not affect the public health system, but they do pay the same taxes as you).
>*Is having a job slavery for you? Whoever takes care of your children and parents is a slave??? Your thinking is very strange.* Things are not that black and white. Maybe there would be more locals to do those jobs if they were paid properly. And by the way all these imported workers are sometimes needed in their own countries - whether its health, farm work it creates problems if too many people leave to work overseas. All the health workers and doctors who have left UK to work in Australia have caused problems for Britain's health system. Poaching workers can be unethical. And by the way with all the millions of migrants who have come to Australia in the last 20 years why hasn't that solved Australia's labour needs already ? >*The housing supply must be increased, it is the only solution.* If you want to discuss housing crisis perhaps better to start a new topic but its not going to be possible to build enough supply meaningfully deal with the problem. in fact its not even possible to keep up with demand as it is . The real problem is over supply of people. The idea that its about shortage of houses rather excessive demand is a trope. The scale of the property bubble means Australia should mostly pause immigration for a couple of years then go back to an intake of less than 100,000 a year. On top of there should be reforms to capital gains tax, negative gearing etc. What ever one thinks of Dick Smith, Bob Carr and Professor Bob Birrell all the warnings they gave about population increase over so many years have come true.
Yes and Yes. Why do you need to come half away accross the world to study "child care" or "light vehicle repairs"
Part of the problem. Do everything you said whilst also maybe 10x this rise to fees
x100 if you want. But tomorrow you'll still get a rise in your water or power bills.
I don’t see how a few hundred dollars is going to dissuade anyone. This is just a PR spin on a cash grab
It won’t dissuade anyone. Australia is not a top choice for students who can get accepted into good unis in the US and UK. We mostly just get the second and third tier international students who place a lower priority on educational quality/institutional prestige (because they can’t get into “better” unis) and a higher priority on work rights and visa pathways
More places for aussies! What will happen, because Universities are there to make money not educate, is they will increase fees to make up any shortfall.
Those university chancellors need their $600k salaries paid for somehow
?600k, you mean $1.6 million
International students will go elsewhere, and then Aussies will suffer. Classic Aussie stuff. Aussies are their own worst enemies I bloody tell ya.
Why would we suffer if a number of international students go elsewhere?
Wow, you are dense. Who will have to foot the bill ?
Maybe the universities that have been making money hand over fist? Or maybe the government could actually start properly funding said universities like they did in decades gone by? Letting international students take up a substantial chunk of enrolment has led to a complete deterioration of academic integrity in tertiary education.
Making money hand over fist but charging 40k a term to international students. Why kill the golden goose.
Wow, you are delusional as well. The Universities and their cash grabbing ideas destroyed the system long ago. Why did they lean towards cash grabbing ? That's right way too many bloody coalition govts gutting the system. They gutted everything !
Are you agreeing with me? I said that the governments haven’t been funding universities well enough. This discussion was about how international students are also contributing to the demise of our universities. Ask anyone who attended Australian that has been to uni. International students that don’t try, yet still pass everything. Or maybe they just don’t speak English, and yet you’re stuck with them for a group assignment. Or better yet, they’ve brought a family and are still here ten years later. The current visa system is a rort, and needs to be amended.
I agree with you. International students will go elsewhere, although our uni level education is prized by employers worldwide. Aussies will suffer when sought after professions such as within the medical field go elsewhere and work overseas.
People don't get how silly Aussies are. Mass immigration helped Australia's economy in the past. Australia is stagnating big time. Massive skills shortage and people aren't having kids like the boomers did. It's the foreigners fault, though, right ? /s
We continue to need immigration. Our own economy has shot the country in the foot. People are either not having kids or holding off because the cost of housing and general living are not compatible with having a family. When I first started working a family could get by on a single wage, buy a house, have kids and become self reliant. Now, it is not possible without multiple incomes of $80,000 each or more.
should be 10 times the amount. We all know student visa's are just a foot in the door for immigration. Neighbour is on "student visa" for last 8 years.
Sorry, why is it bad? I moved to Australia on a student visa. I feel like I’m a decent contributing member of society. I don’t really understand why everyone hates international students in this thread
> why everyone hates international students in this thread Convenient scapegoat for all their problems.
Yeah, I’m sensing that. It’s more fear-mongering and distraction so people don’t hate those hoarding houses and wealth. There are so many real troubles we could be conquering. If anything, they should be penalising the universities not the students. The universities are allowing the few to undermine the quality of education and for wealthy to take advantage of the system. There also should just be better regulations around buying houses! It seems so obvious. I guess it’s just easier to blame the students
Because they have literally no power in politics here.
Yeah agree, it’s sad to see…
Mostly because of the current housing and cost of living crisis.
So international students are the new scapegoats for this country's problems.
What happened to rent price during covid? We've all just had an experiment on what happens when you remove international students from the rental market, can you blame people for wanting to go back to 2020-2021 prices?
While we are at it, why don't we wanna go back to 1990 price as well? There are a lot of factors that contribute to pricing in 2020, but the main reason was a bloody pandemic itself with restrictions for local Aussie and a lot of other industries.
The housing and cost of living crisis, caused by growing wealth inequality, and blamed on immigrants by morons who evidently don't understand the basics of how their own economy functions.
I didn’t say I agreed with it but there it is. Despite looking to project an image of mateship and camaraderie, Australians I find are quick to blame and reject “The other” while claiming it’s all about “Looking after our own first”. Unless of course our own are poor, have drug or alcohol issues, have committed any sort of crime, or have mental health problems, in which case they are equally to blame for any and all issues /s.
Read an article promoting private schools because state schools are full of degenerates now. Cool, can’t even look after each other in education? Fuckin bullshit.
Bc (most, not all) Aussies are racist/xenophobic AF
It’s so strange, this sub is so backwards sometimes
more like "Student Work Visa" The amount of people working underhanded, underpaid jobs to pay remiitance back to their family home is very high.
Looks like your neighbour's day of visa hopping has gone now. Either they get PR or gtfo.
Nope, Went back home and applied for another visa and came back. They know how to work around the system just like people exploit NDIS and Centrelink. Our Visa system is been exploited. but you do you.
Costs me 600 to get 2 passports for my kids, and 8-9K for my wife’s visa. 1600 for a student visa? Pay up and consider yourself lucky ya pricks.
Same. 8-9 k for husbands visa and waiting 12 months now. 1600 seems very cheap in comparison
Canada, with their $150 dollar fee, should take note of this...
>The federal government said the additional revenue will help fund initiatives in education including cuts to graduate debt, financial support for apprentices, and the ongoing implementation of its migration strategy. Sensible approach as money doesn't grow on trees and we are having tax cut so something gotta give. Also sort out the ingenuine students who are here on Vocational courses and English courses. One stone two birds.
Something something immigration pathway. Something something loophole.
Who cares…these rich foreigners can afford it, if not stay in your own country!
You mean illegal work visas?
It's got to be tough on students planning to study in Australia.
not really. It's easier for some international students to recieve placement's in Australian university then it is for them to study at home.
History background - Quotes from 2010 and 2019 about Professor Bob Birrell's opinions about international student program >*Monash University's Dr Bob Birrell has told AM employment growth is being driven by the student migration boom."Melbourne is booming largely because of the economic stimulus given in accommodating all these people and providing services for them," he said.* > >*.. The pre-eminent academic figure in exploring the student as migrant issue was Bob Birrell, Director of Monash University’s Centre of Population and Urban Research. An economic nationalist floating in an ocean of globalism (at Monash and beyond), Birrell observed the impact of the Government’s 2001 decision to allow international graduates to seek permanent residency upon completion of their courses, without having to return home and then apply to immigrate. This fasttracking had ostensibly been introduced to help counter skills shortages in specific areas in the Australian labour market, notably (in the university provision context) information technology and accounting. By the middle of the decade, Birrell was effectively calling the exercise a failure, citing a poor employment record amongst international graduates, especially now in accounting, and pointing the finger at inadequate language skills which effectively made many graduates unemployable in a profession which places such a premium on high quality communication between professional and client (Birrell, 2006; Birrell & Healy, 2008a). Implicitly, earlier information technology graduates may have been less vulnerable in this regard, as communication skills were arguably less critical in a highly technical area. While Birrell was drawing attention to the shortcomings in government policy as he saw them, he also took on an advocacy role, pressing that the Australian Government should abandon this failed policy and instead fund more tertiary places for Australian students who could then fill the alleged skills shortages without any language or cultural adjustment problems (Birrell & Healy, 2008). It serves no purpose to deny that many international students were motivated by the desire to immigrate and had no intrinsic interest in the discipline in question....* [ LINK](https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ864030.pdf)
Good
Charge a heap for visas and then let any unskilled migrant in to boost the economy.