Month: February 2025

Preliminary 2025 funding per university for Commonwealth supported places

Andrew NortonLeave a comment

Due to the Department of Education’s under-reporting of higher education funding, last year I consolidated institution-level information into a spreadsheet. There were about 250 downloads each for the original and a subsequent updated spreadsheet, so I decided it was worth doing again this year. The data sources are the funding determinations for the various funding categories.

I emphasised ‘preliminary’ in the post title because the FEE-FREE Uni Ready funding is not yet included. While this is a little frustrating, the upside is that when it is added the amounts involved will be more transparent than might otherwise have been the case. [Update 28/2/25: In Senate estimates yesterday the Department said that FEE-FREE Uni Ready funding equivalent to historical enabling places as of 2022 were included in the funding agreements. Funding for new FEE-FREE Uni Ready places is yet to be released.]

The headline figures to date are Commonwealth Grant Scheme (CGS) – $8.2 billion, estimated HECS-HELP lending of $5.9 billion, and estimated upfront student contributions of $700 million. Overall, about $14.8 billion, with 95% coming from the Commonwealth in cash flow terms. That percentage will go up when we get the FEE-FREE Uni Ready information.

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Are the government’s policies working to reduce international student numbers? Part 2, student visas granted

Andrew NortonLeave a comment

A previous post looked at demand from international students, as measured by student visa applications. By July 2024 all student deterrent policies announced to date were in place, so the last six months of 2024 could be used to assess initial policy impact.

That analysis found that demand for vocational education declined significantly, whether compared to 2023 or the more normal pre-COVID year of 2019. For higher education, demand was down on 2023. Compared to 2019, higher education demand in 2024 from migration-sensitive countries like India or Pakistan was well down, but demand from other important source countries increased or decreased only slightly.

Visa applications of course must be assessed by the Department of Home Affairs. Visas granted depend on visa processing levels and visa grant rates.

The visa grant analysis below is broadly consistent the first post’s applications analysis. Visa applications and grants in 2024 were both down on 2023. However, 2024 visa applications were up on 2019 but visa grants were down, reflecting fewer applications being processed and lower approval rates.

For both visa applications and grants vocational education has been hit hard. Higher education is more resilient overall, with visa applications and grants both up on 2019.

Due to unprocessed applications and unresolved appeals against visa application rejections, not all 2024 applications have been finalised. These could result in 2025 visa grants that exceed expectations created by recent application levels.

Less clear links between cause and effect

Drawing straightish lines between policy changes and policy consequences is harder for visa grants than applications. Delays between visa applications and processing complicate the analysis. By mid-2024 Home Affairs had a huge backlog – over 113,000 unprocessed applications – including many received prior to 23 March 2024 when significant rule changes came into effect. Because some old rules apply to applications received before policy change dates, different criteria can be used in the same processing month.

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Are the government’s policies working to reduce international student numbers? Part 1, student demand

Andrew Norton3 Comments

From late 2023 to July 2024 the federal government implemented at least nine policies to reduce international student numbers. With full 2024 student visa data released late last week this is a good time to assess how well (or how badly, depending on your point of view) these policies are going.

This post looks at the demand side, how many student visa applications have been lodged. A subsequent post will look at the supply side, visas granted.

The main findings are that the government’s policies have worked to substantially reduce demand for vocational education overall and from migration-sensitive countries in higher education, such as India and Pakistan. However 2024 Chinese higher education applications were down only slightly on 2023 and remain up on 2019. The impact on other traditional higher education source countries such as Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong was also muted (all slightly up or down).

Overall demand

As can be seen in the chart below, in 2024 the Department of Home Affairs received 429,691 student visa applications. This was down 20% on 2023, but still above 2019, the last full year before COVID migration restrictions distorted supply and demand.

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