A new report from the Mitchell Institute at Victoria University (CRICOS Provider: Melbourne 00124K; Sydney 02475D) demonstrates that while Australia’s university education industry is in crisis, countries with open borders are seeing an international student revival.
Despite the pandemic, international students are traveling to Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States in record numbers, but both Australia and New Zealand are burdened by dramatic drops in their international student population.
Key Takeaways:
- While Australia’s university education system is in turmoil, open-border countries are seeing an influx of international students.
- “Student, Interrupted: International Education and the Pandemic” is the title of the report.
- While the markets in Australia and New Zealand have continued to decline, the markets in the UK, the US, and Canada have rebounded, according to the research.
The report titled “Student, interrupted: International education and the pandemic” examined five major study destinations for international students: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
It discovered that from early to mid-2020, all nations saw a significant drop in new international students. However, while the markets in Australia and New Zealand have continued to decrease, the markets in the UK, the US, and Canada have rebounded.
It begs the question of whether or not potential students for the Australian market have gone on, or whether or not Australia will see a similar increase when international student borders reopen.
New international students in the UK are up 37 percent from pre-COVID levels (February 2020). However, new student visa applications for Australia plummeted by 70 percent between October 2020 and September 2021.
Surprisingly, India has surpassed China as the most important supplier of new international students. China’s new student visas are still 25 percent lower than pre-pandemic levels.
According to the Mitchell Institute study, the Australian education sector and businesses that rely on international students will lose AU$20 billion each year until the borders are reopened.
The most recent COVID-19 variant has cast even more doubt on how many overseas students would be allowed to return in the first semester of 2022.
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