How Australia’s informal cap on student visas will reduce immigration numbers

The federal government has found a new way to manage the number of international students in Australia.

It has instructed immigration officials to prioritise student visa applications for all institutions, until they near the individual caps the government proposed for them earlier this year.

This will work as an informal cap, after the Coalition and Greens blocked Labor’s attempt to pass an international student caps bill in November.

How will this work and what does the change mean for international students, universities, private colleges and TAFEs – Australia’s vocational institutes?

What is being proposed?

The government has made the change via a ministerial direction. This is an official instruction from a minister to a public body or organisation. For immigration, this means the minister can instruct decision makers on what to consider when processing on a visa application.

Under this ministerial direction, officials will manage student visa applications using a “prioritisation threshold”. This means officials will prioritise new student visa applications for all higher education and vocational training providers up to 80% of their international student allocations for 2025.

These allocations were set by the government in August, on the thinking legislation to enable their implementation would be approved by parliament before the end of the year.

This week’s new ministerial direction replaces an unpopular one made in December 2023, which instructed officials to prioritise applications...

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