By Susannah Patton, Program Director, Lowy Institute

Visa caps hurt students and diplomatic power

Has Australia ever before squandered global soft power as quickly and wantonly as it has in its recent management of international education?

On the face of it, international education should be a winner for Australia’s global engagement, especially with countries in our region. We have high quality institutions, in both higher education and vocational education and training, instruction is in English, and the lifestyle in Australia is enviable compared to many of our competitors. Australia also has a storied history of using education to engage with the countries of our region, from the 1960s and the era of the Colombo Plan scholarships onwards. This has been a boon in two ways: it has built meaningful connections between Australia and a cohort of influential individuals across the region, and it has also served as an Australian contribution to the human development needs of many countries.

Even before the current crisis brought on by the Albanese government’s poorly thought through changes to international education, Australia had lost some of its traditional advantages in this area. Australian universities no longer provided the highest quality experience to international students. More competition – from both universities inside and outside Asia – meant that Australia lost relative advantage. Australia was no longer seen as a destination for the “best and brightest”. Our scholarship offerings lacked clout and cachet. 

Australia is losing is reputation as an education provider

Reform to international education was needed. But rather than addressing the real problems in this sector that undermine international goodwill in Australia – including dodgy providers, avaricious recruiters and education being used as a backdoor pathway to labour migration – the Albanese government has disregarded any foreign policy dimension in its approach to this issue. Instead, it has approached the sector only through the prisms of domestic politics and migration settings. 

Recently announced measures that risk damaging Australia’s brand include doubling the cost of a student visa to $1600 (no refund available if the visa is declined), allowing the education minister to cap international student numbers, rhetorically linking the presence of international students to a housing shortage, and a slow pace in the approval of visas. The latter has already drawn public attention even in countries with which Australia seeks closer ties, such as Vietnam. All these changes have created uncertainty about Australia as a destination. 

Australia has tended to look only at traditional competitors like the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada in benchmarking its international education policy settings. Many of these competitors are also seeking to crackdown on education as a migration pathway, which may have reassured Canberra that its actions are in line with international best practice. But taking a broader perspective, other non-traditional destinations are becoming competitors. Japan, South Korea and China are all seeking to internationalise higher education, including by attracting foreign students.

New choices are emerging for international students

It's curious that at a time when the Australian government is putting so much effort into a Southeast Asia economic strategy – which includes hard work to remedy persistent areas of Australian disadvantage, like weak private investment interest in the region – that it has undervalued the role of education as a driver of both people connections and knowledge exchange.  

Apart from pausing its reforms to the sector to take stock of international implications, the Australian government should ensure that it is conducting survey and market research to understand the impact of its policy changes on Australia’s reputation and soft power in Asia. When the dust has settled, it should also look to introduce some more proactive measures to restore confidence in Australia as a high-quality destination for study. One such measure could include the reintroduction of a prestigious merit-based scholarship to attract students from Asia to study at Australian higher education institutions.

Susannah Patton is the Southeast Asia Program Director and Project Lead, Asia Power Index at the Lowy Institute. 

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