Foreign student crackdown tightens visa restrictions
Thousands of migrants hoping to enrol in Australian universities will no longer be able to apply for the relevant visa, as the government continues its crackdown on international students.
From July 1, those on temporary graduate, visitor, maritime crew and other visas will not be able to apply for a student visa while they are in Australia.
Applicants "genuinely intending" to pursue studies will still be able to apply for a visa outside Australia, the Department of Home Affairs said on Thursday.
The change is aimed at clamping down on "visa hopping", which the department claims has contributed to a growing cohort of "permanently temporary" former international students in Australia.
"What's happening here is the system's been manipulated or abused as a backdoor just to work," Education Minister Jason Clare told reporters in Sydney.
"And so we've closed that loophole."
The overseas student population in Australia reached a record high of 671,000 in March - a 15 per cent increase on the previous year.
International students provide a $48 billion boost to Australia's economy and employ 200,000 workers, making it the nation's fourth-largest export.
Universities have previously warned that capping foreign student enrolments will cost jobs and damage the research sector.
But the government's migration strategy is attempting to halve net overseas migration to 250,000 by 2025 by cutting down on the number of international students.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese insists foreign students will continue to play a significant role in Australia.
"What we're looking at here in tightening the visa process ... is stopping the abuse of the system ... where people were using the visa system to get entry into Australia in order to work here and stay here for a period of time," he told reporters in Adelaide.
"The migration system that we inherited was in a mess and we make no apologies for fixing it."
Net overseas migration of 547,300 drove 84 per cent of Australia's population growth in 2023, data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics also released on Thursday showed.
