The government has revealed international student caps from 2025. What's been announced?

Universities are divided over the government's student cap, which it claims will make the education system "fairer" and "more sustainable".

Student arrivals have ballooned since Australia reopened its borders after the COVID-19 pandemic. Credit: Chris Ison/PA

Key Points

• The government will cap international student at 270,000 in 2025 to make the system "fairer".
• Student visas are being reduced in an effort to curb net migration levels and return them to pre-pandemic levels.
• Education providers have expressed concern that caps will lead to both job and revenue losses.

International student enrolments will be capped at 270,000 in 2025, as the government aims to make the system "fairer".

The government is paring back student visas in an effort to get net migration levels under control and return them to pre-pandemic levels.

The cap will allow for 145,000 enrolments at public universities, 95,000 foreign student commencements in the vocational education and training (VET) sector, and 30,000 places at other universities and providers.

Education Minister Jason Clare said the changes, which would become the government's first legislated student caps, will put the sector on "more sustainable footing going forward".

Education Minister Jason Clare has capped the number of visas and scrapped ministerial direction 107. Source: AAP / Lukas Coch

"Now students are back. There's about 10 per cent more international students in our universities today than before the pandemic and about 50 per cent more in our private vocational and training providers," he said on Tuesday.

Subject to the education amendment bill passing, Clare said: "Next year there will be about the same number of international students starting a course here as there were before the pandemic."

Clare also announced the scrapping of ministerial direction 107 which created a priority framework for student visa approval decisions.

It meant that visas were prioritised for students looking to attend better universities, or who were looking to study more than one course.

It attempted to limit migration, but Jason Clare said it has created an inequitable system favouring some universities, and the government plans to repeal it.

How have universities responded?

Education providers have expressed concern that caps will lead to both job and revenue losses. In 2022, universities collected about $8.6 billion of their $34.7 billion in revenue from international students.

Professor Ian Li, director of the Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success at Curtin University, is critical of how government policy keeps changing.

"During the pandemic, we said that students go home ... then after the pandemic, we would like to welcome you back ... now that [there's] some pressure on parts of the system, again we can't accommodate you," he told SBS News.

Li said these changes make it difficult for students and universities to plan and would inflict long-term reputational damage that's taken providers decades to build.

Universities claim the government did little to consult them during the process before they were emailed their individual caps this morning.

The government has not released the individual targets and said the information will be made "public in due course".

Meanwhile, regional education providers are enthused by the prospect of attracting more students to smaller universities as a result of caps on larger providers.

Professor Chris Moran, vice-chancellor and CEO of the University of New England, in regional NSW, welcomed the "opportunity" presented by the government.

"UNE has the facilities and space to welcome more international students within our indicative numbers proposed by government," he said.

"However, the existing problem with visa processing delays will constrain our ability to capitalise upon the opportunity. A positive cap level is meaningless unless students can get visas.”