While offshore student visa applications fall, onshore applications boom

As the Government continues to clean up the student visa mess created by the Coalition, a boom in onshore student applications is making matters more complicated. Dr Abul Rizvi reports.

IN 2021-22, the Coalition Government stomped on the overseas student visa accelerator and the Labor Government delayed action to start winding that back until July 2023.

We are now seeing the third phase of the overseas student cycle where there is a massive increase in onshore student applications leaving overseas students in immigration limbo and beginning to look at asylum as the last means of extending stay with work rights.

The offshore portion of the Government’s strategy to reduce net migration is beginning to take effect. Offshore student visa applications again fell sharply in March 2024 (see Chart 1).

A figure caption for your reading pleasure

Offshore student visa grants also fell again in March 2024 (see Chart 2).

That trend will continue as the Government continues to tighten student visa policy in the May Budget and the changes made from mid-March start to bite more fully. The Government is desperate to get the student contribution to net migration down sufficiently to deliver overall net migration in 2024-25 at or below 250,000.

Net student movements in March 2024 also fell sharply to 6,710 from 142,370 in February 2024 and 31,840 in March 2023.

The stock of students in Australia fell from an all-time record of 714,000 at end February 2024 to 671,000 at end March 2024. But that doesn’t mean students are departing Australia at a rapid rate.

There were a record 34,888 onshore student visa applications lodged in March 2024 but only 6,835 onshore student visas were granted. Onshore student visa applications lodged have been steadily rising since late 2023 while grants have remained low (see Chart 3).

Onshore visa grant rates were around 90% from August 2023 but fell to 77.8% in March 2024.

These onshore student visa trends are already contributing, or will begin to contribute, to four poor outcomes.

First, there will be a rise in the backlog of onshore student applications as onshore refusals are highly resource-intensive and take much longer to process than approvals. There is evidence for this in the strong increase in the number of temporary entrants on a bridging visa. This has increased from 176,856 in June 2023 to 286,293 in March 2024. While still well short of the bridging visa backlog record under the Coalition Government, a large backlog of people on bridging visas is a sure sign of a visa system in increasing trouble.

Second, the strong onshore student visa application rate may also reflect a rise in poaching as lower-tier education providers who have found it hard to secure offshore student visa grants turn to attracting students already in Australia through lower fees and less rigorous courses allowing more time for students to work.

Capping student visas to curb net migration could create chaos

There has been much discussion in the media that the Government will cap student visas to bring down net migration to 250,000 in 2024-25.

Third, unless the refusal decisions have a strong basis, we will see a steady increase in these decisions being appealed to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT). There is also some evidence supporting this with student refusals representing 40% of new migration appeals (non-asylum) lodged at the AAT for the financial year to February 2024 compared to only 20% in the 2022-23 financial year.

Finally, we may see a steady rise in students applying for asylum as has been reported in Canada. There is some evidence for this in Australia with asylum claims from Colombian nationals entering Australia’s top ten asylum source nations. China, India, Vietnam and the Philippines, all major student source nations, have long been in the top ten asylum source nations. The Government will be relying heavily on the $160 million asylum seeker strategy it announced last year which is starting to show some acceleration in asylum processing now.

It will take much time and a great deal of resources for these issues to be addressed. In the meantime, the Government should be looking to establish a long-term policy framework for managing the overseas student program that focuses on high-performing students, doing high-quality courses that are in long-term skill demand in Australia.

In addition, it must surely by now have learned the importance of putting in place a formal net migration management framework.

Turning point for student visas and net migration now confirmed

A record number of student visa holders has left the Government with some decisions to be made regarding policy changes.

Dr Abul Rizvi is an Independent Australia columnist and a former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Immigration. You can follow Abul on Twitter @RizviAbul.