SYDNEY: Australia plans to cap foreign student numbers from next year, the government said Tuesday, curbing a multi-billion dollar industry as it faces political heat on immigration. New international student numbers for university, higher education and vocational training will be limited to 270,000 in 2025, Education Minister Jason Clare told a news conference. “It will mean that some universities will have more students this year than next year. Others will have less,” Clare said as he unveiled the plan, which will require legislation.

Official data show that foreign students were worth more than Aus$42 billion (US$28 billion) to Australian universities and vocational education centers in 2023. Australian authorities granted more than 577,000 international student visas in the fiscal year to June 30, 2023. Clare said the change would mean about the same number of international students starting a course next year as there was before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 2025 breakdown will be 145,000 new foreign students for universities, 30,000 for other higher education providers, and 95,000 for vocational education and training, the government said. The new limit aims to replace a recent policy of giving priority to students deemed to be at low risk of visa non-compliance — a system that has favored top-ranked universities while drastically slowing visas for other institutions.

Clare said the government would inform universities on their specific enrolment caps. The University of Melbourne said in a statement that it had received its indicative cap, without elaborating, and was assessing the financial and other implications. “The cap on international students will have detrimental consequences for our University, the higher education sector generally, and the nation for years to come,” said its Vice-Chancellor Professor Duncan Maskell.

The University of Sydney also said it was studying the likely impact of the cap. “We’ll continue to work collaboratively with governments and the sector on managed growth of international higher education, one of Australia’s most valuable exports,” it said in a statement. Universities Australia, the peak body for universities, said the government move would “apply a handbrake” to the sector.

“We acknowledge the government’s right to control migration numbers but this should not be done at the expense of any one sector, particularly one as economically important as education,” said Universities Australia chair David Lloyd. International students were Australia’s second largest industry after mining, accounting for more than half of the growth in Australia’s economy last year, Lloyd said. “Every dollar from overseas students is reinvested back into Australia’s universities. Having fewer students here will only widen the funding gap at a time universities need greater support.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said this month the industry was “absolutely vital” for Australia. But he said universities should not be overly reliant on overseas students, in part because of the implications for migration. About 69 percent of Australian respondents blamed immigration for high house prices, said an Essential poll for The Guardian published on Tuesday. About the same share of people – 42 percent on each side — described immigration as “generally positive” or “generally negative”, it said.

Net migration to Australia surged 26.3 percent in calendar 2023 to 547,300, official figures show, with 751,500 people immigrating while 204,200 left. Australia’s government also plans to protect the international education industry from “crooks who try to exploit it”, the education minister said. More than 150 “ghost colleges” had recently been shut down, Clare said, describing them as “a back door” to let people work in Australia rather than get an education. – Agencies