Thi Hong Tran was granted a student visa in October 2012 and arrived in Australia from Vietnam shortly after.
Months after arriving in Australia and beginning her course, she ran out of money and struggled to pay her university fees.
The Administrative Appeals Tribunal was told that the word above her dire circumstances soon spread and Tran was offered $2,000 to water cannabis plants in a house in Cranbourne.
She was also offered the house rent-free with the promise of more money at the end of cultivation period.
But in May 2013 police raided her house, arrested her and charged her with cultivating a commercial quantity of a narcotic plant.
She was convicted and received an 18-month suspended prison sentence. She was also put on a two-year good behaviour bond.
At the end of her prison sentence, Tran's student visa expired in August 2015 and her application for an extension was denied by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection.
The Administrative Appeals Tribunal has now overturned that decision. The Tribunal’s deputy president Stephanie Forgie concluded that Tran was naive and desperate for money when she agreed to commit the act.
"Her naivety and her misplaced understanding that she should not ask her parents for further finances led her to placing herself in that position," her ruling stated.
"It was a position from which she could not extricate herself once she knew the address of the house and the nature of the undertaking.
"Were she to repeat her behaviour the consequences for the Australian community would be serious. I find, however, that she is very unlikely to do that."
Since her sentence, Tran has resumed studying and is soon to complete her Master’s degree.
The tribunal stated that Tran should be allowed to finish the course.
"I would not want to see a young person's life be changed by one bad decision when she was a long way from home and has since done so much to rehabilitate herself and earned the respect of her counsellors as well as of her husband and friends."
