This month, while travelling through Scotland and England and engaging with academics and colleagues in international education in the UK, it was impossible to ignore the consistent strain in political narratives around international students, and how disturbingly similar the policy directions emerging in Australia are becoming. With the Australian federal elections looming large, international students are being used as an expedient and powerful lever in migration debates, echoing the same playbook the UK employed over a year ago.
To provide some context on the interplay between fees, visa restrictions, and economic impacts witnessed in the UK over the past year, not all UK universities offer free higher education to domestic students. In England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, domestic students pay tuition fees, and Northern Ireland charges higher fees for students from other UK regions. In Scotland, undergraduate education is free for eligible Scottish residents, whereas students from other parts of the UK studying in Scotland pay up to £9,000 per year.
The UK, therefore, relies significantly on international students, who pay substantially higher fees, often three times those of domestic students, contributing critically to university finances and subsidising local education, particularly as public funding has not kept pace with rising costs. Just like in Australia.
Since January 2024, the UK’s tightening of international student visa regulations, specifically restrictions on dependants, increased financial thresholds, and broad “genuine student” criteria, has resulted in approximately a 20% decline in student visa numbers. Efforts to curb the dependant visa to address abuse by students and dependants working rather than studying, have led to an 85% drop in dependant visa applications, further lowering postgraduate enrolments at UK institutions.
Predictably, the economic impact has been severe: international students contribute between £37 billion and £40 billion annually to the UK economy through fees and expenditure. Universities reliant on international fees (nearly 23% of their total income in 2022/23) now face severe financial strain, placing thousands of academic and professional jobs at risk. The ripple effects have reached local economies, with student accommodation being repurposed, landlords selling properties, and businesses dependent on student spending suffering significant losses. In Edinburgh, where students constitute up to 35% of the population due to the concentration of universities in the city, community sentiment, driven by political rhetoric, increasingly portrays students as burdens, consumers of valuable real estate, rather than essential economic contributors. Again, a familiar narrative in Australia.
Compared to the UK, Australia is even more heavily reliant on international student revenue due to persistently inadequate public funding of universities and research. Only 35% of tertiary education funding is publicly sourced in Australia, necessitating that the rest of the revenue be derived from private fees, predominantly from international students. Capping international student numbers will therefore have severe financial implications, particularly for research-intensive institutions, potentially leading to research funding cuts, increased domestic student fees, and significant job losses. Australia’s structured student loan system offers some protection, but this cannot entirely insulate the sector from substantial revenue loss.
Despite clear evidence of negative consequences from the UK, Australia’s political discourse remains intent on replicating similar regulatory measures to control migration via clamping down on the flow of international students. Both major Australian parties are employing short-term migration tactics, including imposing severe deterrents such as enrolment caps and the proposal to institute the highest international student visa fees globally (the Coalition proposing fees as high as AUD$5,000 for Group of Eight universities) as part of their election promises.
The intended and explicit impact of these policies threatens Australia’s $36 billion international education sector, one of our most significant diplomatic and economic exports and multicultural assets, risking job losses, institutional instability, and erosion of critical expertise already observed over 2024 in the UK.
The “race to the bottom” nature of the political debate, focusing on who can cut international education deeper and faster, has also dominated Australian headlines for the past year. As observed in the UK, when students, parents, and agents sense precarity in a study destination, they divert attention to more welcoming countries. In the UK’s case, other European destinations benefited from these restrictions. In Australia, these quiet exits have already started. Smaller providers and universities alike are already feeling the strain of reduced enrolments, barely hanging on amid the instability created by political rhetoric.
Sledgehammer policies without nuance inevitably cause collateral damage. Complex international education ecosystems in both the UK and Australia desperately need considered and measured policies aimed at long-term reform to improve quality of the sector rather than short-term political gain. We require policies and reforms customised to our specific environments and stakeholders rather than flawed models borrowed from elsewhere that do not suit our context.
Australia’s context is uniquely different from the UK’s. Our geographic challenges mean significant barriers for rural, remote, and Indigenous communities accessing education, requiring tailored access and equity strategies. An ageing demographic and declining traditional student numbers necessitate greater emphasis on lifelong learning and retraining. Persistent equity gaps for disadvantaged groups, public concern over university funding, student debt, corporatisation and accountability, and quality of education, all underscore the need for distinctive, contextually informed higher education policies, developed in consultation with stakeholders.
The Australian Universities Accord is one such instrument with its recommendations advocating reforms that prioritise equity, increase public investment, support for innovation, foster responsible international education strategies including English language measures and harmonising vocational and higher education systems. The Accord’s recommendations were released over a year ago, but the future of these critical reforms now hangs precariously in the balance, dependent entirely on the outcome of Australia’s 2025 federal election. Will these recommendations be enhanced, carried out as planned, or entirely reversed? The stark policy divide among the jockeying parties means the upcoming election will now shape Australia’s future by determining the sustainability, fairness, and effectiveness of our higher education sector. The direct impact of this is on all of us that call Australian International Education our home.
Aparna Jacob has worked in international education since 2008, beginning as a teacher before moving into academic leadership across private and university sectors in Sydney. A former English Australia board member for over eight years, she is now Director of Studies at UNSW College, where she leads Academic English programs and champions the evolving role of international education in shaping global futures.
