Australia Education Sector to witness revenue drop

For at least another three years  Australia’s international education sector will face  revenue drop as there is further drop in student inflow from countries like India. Overseas student arrivals would drop more than half from early 2010 levels by June 2014, the department briefing in the 'Red Book' suggested.

The drop is attributed to a new points test, tougher immigration checks, assaults on students, a stronger dollar, quality audits of education providers, and a fresh US campaign for Indian students. Local universities and colleges dependent on overseas students will be forced to compete for a reduced pool of 64,500 overseas student arrivals in 2013-14, compared with 134,700 in March last year, a briefing for incoming Immigration Minister Chris Bowen, released this week, said.

The fall would "more than offset the projected increase in net overseas migration from a continued economic recovery", 'The Australian' reported.  The number of offshore student visa applications approved in 2009-10 plummeted by almost a third from the previous year to 158,240, while rejections rose by almost a quarter to 31,726. Indications are that grant numbers will fall further in 2010-11.

The hardest hit international education market was indicated for Victoria where the downturn has stripped tens of millions of dollars of revenue from individual universities and forced some, such as Monash, to make up the shortfall with voluntary redundancies.  Last month, the government announced a review of the student visa program, along with extra support for the international education sector, in response to the precipitous fall in student numbers.