Government twists student visa policy to chase migration targets

The government says it supports international education, but changing visa policies and rising fees tell a very different story. Dr Abul Rizvi writes.

MINISTER OF EDUCATION Jason Clare to have announced At National Planning Level (Non-performing loansIt will be kept at 295,000 for 2027 for new overseas student starts for the higher education and vocational education and training (VET) sectors.

Clare also said:

‘Current tracking shows international student starts are on track to be below non-performing loans for both 2026 and 2027.’

The Minister says that starts are 8% below NPL.

So what’s the point of a non-performing loan that the Government has no intention of delivering? This was not disclosed.

Group of Eight (go8) lobby group published a publication media release We welcome the government’s decision not to reduce non-performing loans. The media release says nothing about the Government’s intention not to surrender the NPL. This is likely because Go8 universities will meet their respective non-performing loan allocations, especially since these universities are highly dependent on students from China. It is the lower-tier universities and VET providers who cannot meet their allocations.

When 2026 NPL announced In mid-2025 the Government was still talking about the “managed growth” of a “sustainable” international education sector. At the time I asked the Government what an increase of 25,000 meant in terms of the Treasury’s net migration estimates. I was told that net migration is just a statistical measure and is not taken into account in determining non-performing loans.

Surprisingly, this may have been what the Government was thinking at the time, with some academics also selling them on the idea.

The announcement of higher non-performing loans for 2026 has led to a strong increase in offshore student applications as education providers understandably recruit the higher allocations they are given. This clearly worried the Government. By September 2025, net migration stopped falling and started increasing again.

From October/November 2025 the Government increased offshore refusal rates for student visa applicants, particularly from South Asian countries (but not China), to unprecedented levels. While the government argued that this was about achieving higher levels of visa “integrity”, reducing net migration was also supposed to be an aim.

Deputy Minister as of March 2026 Julian Hill in question, “Growth has stabilized, starts are down around 15%”. Within nine months the Government went from talking about “managed growth” to announcing a 15% decline in starts.

Rising rejection rates eventually affected offshore application levels, which fell by May 2026 to levels not seen (aside from COVID) since 2015-16. Offshore student applications from 2026 to date are now below pre-COVID enrollments (see Table 1).

But can high rejection rates based on highly subjective criteria be sustained? Will these be enough to reduce net migration sufficiently before the next election?

To put further downward pressure on application rates (and therefore net migration), the Government initially increased the student visa application fee to $2,000. This was twice the next highest student visa fee of around US$1,000 charged by the UK.

The Australian Government subsequently doubled the temporary graduate visa fee from US$2,300 to US$4,600 on 1 March 2026. Then, as part of another major increase to most visa application fees on 1 July 2026, the Government increased the student visa application fee to $2,500 and the provisional postgraduate application fee to $5,750.

The two main tools the government currently uses to reduce net migration are high student visa rejection rates and steep increases in visa fees. Both are very weak policy tools and reflect a panic about reducing net migration despite the rise in One Nation polls.

Government resigned from Accountancy Office Jim Chalmers In May 2023 sayingWhen asked about the explosion in net migration compared to Treasury forecasts, “This is not a government policy or a government target. This is not a floor or a ceiling, it is not something the government sets.”to , Prime minister now he says the Treasury is committed to providing its latest net migration estimates.

However, two problems arise. First, the Government has so far used very weak and untargeted means to reduce net migration, and applied them very haphazardly. Second, it still has not done enough to reduce net migration to the levels the Prime Minister has committed to by the next election. He will need to do more.

A better approach would be to develop. long term plan for net migration and clearly explain this plan to the Australian public. But none of the three major forces in Australian politics appear interested in doing so.

Doctor Abul Rizvi He is an independent Australian columnist and former Deputy Secretary of the Immigration Service. You can follow Abul on Twitter @RizviAbul or Bluesky @abulrizvi.bsky.social.

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