Australian Education Minister confirms plan to cap international student enrolments

The caps on international student enrolments in Australian universities are likely to be calculated over the next three months. The sector fears that it will not only hurt Australia's international reputation and position in global rankings but also result in job cuts and less funding for research.

Image source: SBS

Australia's education minister Jason Clare has confirmed plans to cap international student enrolments in universities. He said that it is a response to requests from smaller universities struggling with the country's "uneven" international education landscape in recent years.

While talking to Sky News on June 9, he said, "I’m expecting the focus here and the work that we’ll do will take place over the next three months to set what those caps are, but the focus will be on the caps for the institutions rather than the courses."

The Federal Government made a surprise announcement just before the May budget that it will introduce caps on the number of international students in Australia. The universities are really worried about the government's decision as it can result in less funding for research, job losses at universities and it is also likely to affect the global rankings of the universities. The international student enrolments provide a major source of funding for Australia’s universities. In 2022, the universities collected nearly A$8.6 billion from international students, which is more than a quarter of all revenue.

Many universities requested for cap on international students, said Minister

While he refused to reveal the names of the universities, but said that many universities have asked for such a limit to the “uneven” nature of the sector over the last few years.

Clare added that the decision is part of an effort to “maintain the social licence for this important export”.

"Remember, this is the biggest export we don’t dig out of the ground, it’s worth $48 billion, and if we set this up and regulate it the right way, it will help to make sure that we can continue to have that sector grow over the longer term," said Clare.

Immediately after the budget, Clare introduced legislation to Parliament on student caps to provide ministerial powers to regulate international education. The Federal government is trying to reduce the net overseas migration (the increase in the number of people in Australia) to pre-pandemic levels of about 260,000 people per year.

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