A 15 per cent decline in overall commencements from 2024 to 2025. A 37 per cent decline in commencements for ELICOS. And a 23 per cent drop in the vocational education and training (VET) sector.
These headline results from the international student data for 2025, released by the Department of Education last Friday, make for sombre enough reading. But when you unpack the data, it reveals even worse news for parts of the international education sector.
As reported by Koala (TKN 200326), policy pressures are impacting the number of international students studying in Australia, and the upheaval in Australia’s international education policy settings is affecting some sectors more than others.
A tale of two provider types in higher education
While there’s no doubt higher education commencements in the public sector have been impacted by policy shifts, commencements from 2024 to 2025 remain in positive territory, growing by 2 per cent. The private higher education sector, on the other hand, declined by 4 per cent for the same period.
And although enrolments for the private higher education sector were up 17 per cent compared to 7 per cent in the public sector, this reflects historically strong growth in earlier years, with more recent movements in commencements yet to fully impact enrolments.
A beleaguered ELICOS sector
In 2025, enrolments in the ELICOS sector were down 35 per cent from the year before, to levels not seen since before 2007. Commencements were down 37 per cent.
For a sector already significantly impacted by the increase in the student visa application charge (TKN 170226), the picture is more concerning when considering the ‘New to Australia’ commencements, particularly among private ELICOS providers.
Focusing on students newly arriving in Australia, the entire ELICOS sector was down 40 per cent on 2024. Private ELICOS providers were down 42 per cent, and 55 per cent down compared to pre-pandemic levels.
More ‘New to Australia’ data
While total commencements were down 15 per cent year-on-year, New to Australia commencements were down 18 per cent. The VET sector was down 49 per cent on New to Australia commencements, and 50 per cent down for private education providers.
“The ‘New to Australia’ figures are the clearest signal we have of underlying demand, and the full calendar year data points to a sharper contraction than the headline numbers suggest, particularly for independent providers,” says Steve Knussen, Executive Director, Kaplan Business School.
“Onshore movement can mask reality for a time, but it doesn’t create new demand. What matters more is how many offshore students are choosing Australia in the first place and how many are being granted visas to arrive, and those figures are falling more sharply than the overall rate.”
Vocational education and training
Commencements were down 23 per cent for the private VET sector and 22 per cent for the public VET sector, however they were off vastly different bases, with the relative impact more pronounced in parts of the private sector.
But Assistant Minister for International Education, Julian Hill, appears unapologetic in an Op Ed timed for the day before the 2025 data was released (TKN 230326).
“The Australian Government will not back off from managing the size and the shape of the onshore international student market and ongoing moves towards a more sustainable sector,” he said.
The data points to a sector where underlying demand has softened more sharply than headline figures suggest, with the full impact yet to be felt as lower commencements work through the system. For parts of the sector, particularly private providers and ELICOS, the bottom may not yet have been reached.
The figures in this article were taken from the International Student Data for the year-to-date (YTD) December 2025, accessed on 23 March 2026.
