‘Not our fault’: The students having second thoughts about Destination Australia

Magdiel Silva Da Luz has a job, a partner and an almost-complete master’s of strategic communications.

But would he choose Australia again?

“I would definitely think twice,” the Brazilian international student said.

Silva Da Luz is not alone. Australia’s $54 billion international education industry is under siege as the world’s highest visa application fees, eye-watering degree costs for international students, the extraordinary cost of living, changes to work rights and a so-called “genuine student test” come together to undermine the appeal of an Australian education.

But it’s the rising tide of populism that has most alarmed students.

“When I arrived [in 2022], the situation was a bit more open for international students,” Silva Da Luz said. “Now it seems like it’s a bit more unstable, it feels a bit more insecure.”

“When I came here in 2022, in Brazil we had [former Brazilian president Jair] Bolsonaro, and he was very conservative and very homophobic. So I left Brazil and went to Australia because I think here is not the right place for me. And now I’m here and it’s happening again.”

The Herald spoke to numerous international students for this story, all of whom made allegations of “microaggressions” ranging from rude comments to being spat at. All of the students said the increasingly tense and public migration debate had led to them feeling less welcome or unwelcome in Australia. None of those students wanted to be identified for fear of reprisal from the government or cancellation of their visas.

“I don’t feel like it’s our fault, most of the problems that the country has,” Silva Da Luz said. “So it’s very hard to have [people say] ‘Oh international students are the problem, so let’s just boot them.’ ”

Universities and the international students who prop them up face a friendless future, with all future governments planning to rein in numbers.

The Albanese government has announced sweeping reforms that it hopes will curb the numbers through barring family members of international students and ending visa hopping. Hardline plans to slash the numbers have also been announced by both the Coalition and One Nation.

An “excellent study experience for students who then return home” is the government’s hope for the future of the system, according to a presentation by the Department of Education’s Dr Damien Oliver last week. (This is not borne out in reality, with about 170,000 former students currently on a temporary bridging visa after graduation.)

The government wants to focus on the “composition, quality and integrity” of the sector rather than chasing greater enrolment numbers, Oliver said.

Visa data shows these planned reductions are coming off a low base – 31,000 higher education visas were granted between July and September this year, a 40 per cent decline since the peak in 2024 and down 16 per cent on pre-pandemic numbers from 2019.

All of this spells big trouble for the nation’s universities, which rely heavily on funding from international students.

“For years, governments have asked universities to do more while public funding has failed to keep pace with the cost of teaching, research and infrastructure. International education has helped fill that gap,” Universities Australia CEO Luke Sheehy said.

This year, the Herald revealed that the University of NSW and the University of Sydney took $1.7 billion each from international students.

“It’s pretty serious,” higher education expert Andrew Norton said. “We’ve already seen a couple of unis announcing job cuts due to this – Adelaide University, Murdoch University, Charles Sturt University. This will be, in my view, extremely common over the next few years.”

International student fees are used to subsidise domestic ones, particularly at struggling smaller and regional universities.

Then there’s research.

“There is absolutely no doubt that they are critical for the scale – just over half of research funding is dedicated sources, the rest is coming from other income sources,” Norton said.

“There are … profits of commercial operations and endowments. But there’s simply no way those sums could add up without significant international student profits.”

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