Global student mobility is in the headlines in Australia, the UK and Canada. Each country employing different policies to reduce its international Students. Here in Australia, visas are on the go slow and rejections are not transparent. What’s happening?
Most of the broadsheets have stories this week about the student visa go-slow, an increase in rejections and how this is tied to the Government’s commitment to reduce the migrant intake over coming years.
This approach is short-sighted and will ultimately hurt Australia’s standing in the global community as it rejects bona fide students with little to no consistency. It does little to support genuine operators in the market who are now scratching their heads and wondering if they’ll have a business this time next year.
So what’s happening?
Grant Rates: 2023-24
The Koala’s team of data analysts have crunched the numbers and presents the following analysis:
At 82.5%, the overall grant rate for Q4 of 2023 was the lowest since records began in 2005. The three largest sectors, HE, VET, and ELICOS, all individually experienced the lowest grant rates since 2005.
Compared to Q4 of 2019 (the last Q before the borders shut for Covid), in 2023, these top three sectors saw 8% more visas being considered for a grant, but it saw 119% more applications rejected. Importantly, while much of the government’s rhetoric in their responses to the many immigration inquiry reports have been aimed at ghost colleges in the Vocational Education sector and while VET is certainly experiencing record high levels of rejections, the HE sector has seen the largest rise in rejections.
In Q4 of 2023, the number of visas processed for HE students was one-third higher – up 33% from just below 49,000 to just below 65,000 student visa applications. However, the number of rejections was more than triple – up 236% from just over 3,000 to well over 10,000. Of these rejections, 65% were applications from India and Nepal, which both saw triple the number of rejections in Q4 of 2023 compared to Q4 2019 despite the number of applications being only 12% higher.
The ELICOS sector, up 10% compared to 2019 has seen its rejection rate more than double. Meanwhile, the VET sector which saw 30% fewer visa applications processed in Q4 of 2023 compared to Q4 of 2019, experienced a more than 50% increase in the number of rejections.
What’s the lived experience?
The Koala has spoken to multiple providers across the country in recent days, and the message is consistent. They are pulling their hair out in frustration at what they see as the government destroying businesses and livelihoods.
While no data for January will be released for another month or so, one provider who spoke with the Koala said rejections in January of this year were making business untenable – 13 times higher than rejection rates in previous Januarys despite no significant change in the kind of students or where they are coming from. “Our provider assessment level has been level 1 for a long time, we only work with good agents and recruit genuine students. We haven’t changed a thing, but applications that meet every requirement, that are perfect, are getting rejected en masse.”
To date, the Koala is not aware of any statement of change to the criteria of visa assessment. In fact, comments from providers and agents to the Koala suggest that rejections have been indiscriminate, with weak applications getting through while strong ones are rejected regardless of the nationality, age, or financial status of the applicants.
Another provider who spoke off the record to the Koala echoed this experience saying that January has been the worst month ever for rejections. “It’s infuriating! Two years ago, Dan Tehan was patting himself on the back when international students came back in good numbers, now he’s demanding they stop and blaming them for there not being enough doctors! Labour’s no better. They extend post-study work rights one minute and then shut them off again the next because there’s an election coming. This is people’s lives that are getting ruined, though!” said the CEO of one institution.
Another remonstrated that all the rejections and all the new measures the government is talking about introducing will only damage the quality institutions that do the right thing and will have no impact at all on the dodgy colleges saying, “The regulators never seem to stop any of the shonky colleges who don’t require students attend or complete assessment. They just make things impossible for those who do things by the book. It’s form after form and waiting for months for them to tick a box and approve a change.”
A fourth provider, who again wished to remain anonymous, said, “We are seeing it [visa anomalies] across everything really”.
– Onshore students who are in their early 20’s are taking 3-4 months in some cases.
– Increased refusals from main markets (Philippines, Colombia, Ecuador)
– Increased wait times for the majority of countries. Some countries have gone from being processed in 1-2 weeks, to taking over 3 months now. (South Korea which is a level 1 country has applications that are taking over 3 months).
“I understand the government is trying to slow the flow of international students down and let in less than last year, but at the moment it is a bit ridiculous as they are refusing 20 year olds and granting 38 year olds so it seems like it is a bit all over the place.” They said.
“The big issues that we see happening if this continues:
– Colleges will become level 3 assessment level as they have more refusals from countries that had a 99% grant rate last year.
– Colleges will then have to stop recruiting from offshore to counter this uncertainty from immigration.
– Increased admin work for colleges – at the moment all of our students are deferring / withdrawing because of this uncertainty. Immigration advises not to apply for the student visa longer than 4 months before the start date, but they take longer than 4 months to grant or refuse it – this doesn’t really make any sense.
– The increased uncertainty and not being able to project when our students are going to arrive = a lower standard that the industry is able to provide as they cannot prepare properly for intake dates.
At the moment, we are just seeing applications build up, but no decisions being made.”
“This is the opposite of what the current government declared late last year in providing more staff and cutting down visa wait times.” They said.
Robert Parsonson from the International Student Education Agents Association (ISEAA) is well aware of the issues, saying, “The unofficial slowdown in visas is now well documented. I can only comment anecdotally. For countries like Colombia, this is a real handbrake on the market with a lag on restarting recruitment. The other concern is reports from Colombian students with student visa grants that were later ‘reviewed’ and withdrawn. This has occurred both onshore and offshore.”
“The huge numbers of visa rejections represent future cashflow concerns for many colleges.” He said.
The Koala approached English Australia for comment with its new CEO, Ian Aird, stating “English Australia is concerned about some of the reports it has received in recent weeks regarding visa rejections and is working with the government to understand what is happening in terms of what looks like record high rejections.” Sensible.
There is clearly discontent in the sector with the Government and the Department of Home Affairs, and if the anecdotal reports are anything to go on, the Kaola believes things may get a lot worse still as we approach a federal election.
