A skew towards onshore visa applicants is helping to prop up foreign enrolments in Australia’s universities, but observers say international higher education is headed for the sort of “correction” facing English language colleges.
Thirty-five per cent of primary higher education visas awarded last financial year went to people who had applied from within Australia, figures reveal. It was the highest share for onshore applicants in the past two decades, other than during the peak pandemic years of 2019-21 and the “perfect storm” years of 2009-13.
People applying from overseas are claiming a diminishing slice of primary higher education visas, as more applicants are knocked back. Former Department of Home Affairs official Mike Ferguson said the visa grant rate for this group had fallen from 92 per cent in 2024-25 to 81 per cent in 2025-26 and just 72 per cent between January and June this year.
Ferguson, now pro vice-chancellor of Charles Sturt University, said the grant rate across all nationalities other than China had averaged 62 per cent over the first six months of the year, down from 92 per cent during the equivalent period of 2025. The overall rate “doesn’t tell the full story and is certainly not reflective of what providers, students and agents are currently experiencing”, he noted on LinkedIn.
