In 2024 substantially more potential international students than usual withdrew their visa applications prior to assessment. Across the international education industry, visa withdrawals were equivalent to 3.6% of all applications received in 2024. In the more stable market and policy environment of 2019 only 1% of applications were withdrawn.
Visa withdrawals affected vocational education more than higher education, 6.1% of applications withdrawn compared to 2.8%. But both figures were much higher than in 2019 or 2023.
Provider actions
No student survey data examines why applications were withdrawn, but we can infer likely reasons from events during 2023 and 2024.
In 2023 and into 2024 visa grant rates fell to well below normal levels. Along with the direct financial loss from visa refusals, education providers know high refusal rates – especially if fraud is found in applications – can affect the level of evidence their students must submit in their visa application.
In December 2023, the risk ratings underlying the evidence level requirements took on new significance. Ministerial direction 107 directed the Department of Home Affairs to use the evidence levels in visa processing priorities. Students seeking a visa to attend an education provider with a higher risk rating went to the bottom of a long visa processing queue.
By early 2024 the media was reporting that, to protect their risk rating, education providers were cancelling enrolments or encouraging students to withdraw their applications.
Monthly figures for higher education student visa withdrawals are consistent with these reports. In late 2023 (the orange bars in the chart below) withdrawals started tracking above 2019 levels, with the numbers escalating in the first few months of 2024 (the red bars), peaking in March 2024. The vocational education monthly numbers, which I have reported elsewhere, spike in March 2024 and remain very high by historical standards until November 2024.
Student actions
Some potential international students withdrawing their applications is normal. Their circumstances can change; they can receive better offers from other countries.
In addition to these usual reasons, in 2023 and 2024 students, like education providers, had tactical reasons for withdrawing applications. Visa refusals must be reported in subsequent visa applications. The significance of refusals varies depends on the reason given – minor for not meeting current visa criteria, serious if fraud is found. Either way, avoiding a refusal is prudent if the prospective student believes that outcome is a high risk.
As visa application outcomes became inconsistent and harder to predict from late 2023 that risk elevated for many applicants. Applications that would have been approved in early 2023 were being rejected in late 2023 and 2024. Withdrawing an application manages that risk.
Along with this strategic reason for withdrawing a visa application, some potential students may have just given up. As at 30 June 2024, the median processing time for a higher education application was 94 days and for a vocational education application 171 days.
If prospective international students don’t believe that their visa application will receive a fair or efficient evaluation it is best not to apply in the first place, and if too late for that to cut their losses and abandon thought of an Australian education.
Professor Andrew Norton is a Professor of Higher Education Policy in the Monash Business School at Monash University
