According to the newspaper, the proposed reforms would include restrictions on lodging student visa applications from within Australia, limits on which international students could bring partners and dependants, and tighter rules around students changing courses.
The Australian reports that the government is also considering blocking students from moving from higher education into the vocational education and training (VET) sector, as well as broader measures to limit “visa hopping” and onshore pathways to migration.
The newspaper reports that some exemptions for family members would apply, including for postgraduate research students, government-sponsored students and students from Pacific nations and Timor-Leste.
The UK introduced similar restrictions in 2024, with international students generally only able to bring dependants if they are studying a postgraduate research program or are sponsored by a national government.
In Australia, the student visa changes could reportedly be brought forward to September, with The Australian suggesting that the wider immigration package is expected to be announced by the government next month.
On the same day as the newspaper published its story, Carolyn Evans, chair of Universities Australia, warned that radically reducing international student numbers could have consequences far beyond university balance sheets.
Delivering her State of the Sector address at the National Press Club on August 25, Evans suggested the debate over international students had become too simplistic and argued that government should be prepared to confront trade-offs openly rather than treating student-number reductions as an isolated migration-policy measure.
Reacting to the newspaper report, Group of Eight chief executive Vicki Thomson said that while there was a “legitimate debate to be had about migration settings, quality and integrity across parts of the international education sector”, students choosing to study in Australia were not “gaming the system”.
“What is not helpful is treating every provider, every student and every institution as though they are the same. They are not,” she said.
Thomson added that government poliies should make a distinction between volume and value, and avoid prioritising short-term migration goals over Australia’s long-term global outlook. “If Australia wants to remain globally competitive, we cannot shrink from the world,” she said.
Speaking at The PIE Live Asia Pacific conference last month, Julian Hill, assistant minister for international education was clear the government will not return to a volume‑driven approach.
“We’re not going to back off from the need to manage the size and the shape of the onshore student market,” he told the Gold Coast audience and reiterated the government’s ambitions to lower net overseas migration.
The government has forecast that net overseas migration will fall to 225,000 by 2027/28, after peaking at 538,000 in 2022/23 following the reopening of Australia’s borders.
The PIE News has contacted the Department of Home Affairs for comment and will update this story if a response is received.
