The number of new Indian students choosing to study at Australian universities collapsed by more than 80 per cent in the second half of 2020, in a further blow to the country’s more than $30 billion international education system.

The Indian student market was worth $6.6 billion to the Australian economy in the 2019-20 financial year, second only to China as the top source country of foreign students studying in Australia.

But the impact of ongoing border closures has proved devastating for universities’ recruitment efforts. Around 2500 Indian students began studying at Australian universities between July and November last year — a decline of 83 per cent compared with the same period in 2019, data from the Department of Education shows.

In contrast, new commencements from Chinese university students declined by just over 8 per cent to around 8600 students over the same period. It is unclear how many international students elected to defer their universities studies in 2020 as the data has not been made public.

Ravi Singh, managing director of Global Reach, which recruits south Asian students to universities across the world, said his organisation had noticed a 50 per cent decrease in the numbers of students registering their interest to study in Australia at open day events in India, Nepal and Bangladesh.

“As a contrast, Global Reach has doubled inquiries for UK and Canada. This is very concerning,” Mr Singh said.

“Even though we are recognised in the market as an Australian education specialist, the interest even amongst our pipeline students seem to be changing for the destinations that are open: UK, Canada and the US.”

He said more than 30 Australian universities participated in a virtual event targeted at Indian students last week, but fewer than 1000 people registered interest, while similar events last year routinely drew more than 2000 attendees.

“We can’t keep counselling the students that Australia has contained the virus and classes on the campuses is face-to-face. This means nothing to a student who is not able to travel to Australia even though visas are being granted,” he said.

The pandemic has exposed the heavy reliance on high fee-paying Chinese international students, particularly by the elite Group of Eight universities, as a key source of operating revenue. These concerns have been further heightened by fears that universities are the next target in China’s trade strikes on Australian industries, as reports emerged last month that Chinese authorities were directing local recruiters not to send students to Australia.

But less attention has been paid to the impact of border closures on the Indian market.

Dr Peter Hurley, a higher education expert at Victoria University’s Mitchell Institute, said the data indicated Indian students, who are more likely to enrol in regional and non-Group of Eight institutions, have been far less willing to begin their studies online compared with their Chinese counterparts.

“When you look at the [new students] data, it’s dropped across the board, but it’s the Chinese market that is holding up strongest,” Dr Hurley said.

“Even if the borders were to open, it’s not clear that the flow will return to the same levels they were at before the pandemic. It might take some time for those people to come back and enrol.”

Luke Sheehy, executive director of the Australian Technology Network, which includes the University of Technology Sydney and RMIT University as members, said Australia was facing “fierce competition” from other countries for Indian students.

“China and India are the two largest markets but clearly they are very different. Indian students want face-to-face teaching, and we haven’t been able to offer that this year. They can’t get here, so they are choosing other options,” Mr Sheehy said.

Education Minister Alan Tudge said overall international student enrolments in universities had declined by 5 per cent in 2020 “with many students from all nationalities continuing their study online”.

‎International Education Association of Australia chief executive ‎Phil Honeywood said the Indian student market closely followed changes in government policy, which heightened the need for communication around a possible return date.

“Many Indian students were prepared last year to just defer for a 12-month period, but faced with another year of closed borders, they are now jumping on planes to the UK and Canada,” he said.

Australia’s universities have no idea when foreign students and their millions of dollars in tuition fees will start returning to their campuses and the federal government can’t help them. 

Vice-chancellors are in the dark, unable to prepare their campuses, while thousands of lecturers anxiously wait to learn if they will have a job this year – or not.

The federal government has no timeline for when international students can return to Australia so the vice-chancellors “must take it week by week at this stage”, as one commented, with universities preparing for the start of the new academic year in early March.

Federal Education Minister Alan Tudge says that until a rollout of a COVID vaccine is available domestically, international student numbers will not return to their pre-pandemic levels.

In a radio interview, Tudge said he was open to alternative plans from the states and territories for safely bringing foreign students to Australia.

“It’s very difficult to predict. Ordinarily, we have about 185,000 students who would cross the borders and come into Australia to start at the beginning of the academic year, and about the same number again in the middle of the year,” he said.

“When we can get back to those types of numbers I don’t know. We’re really taking it week by week and month by month.”

Tudge said a big factor was the role of the coronavirus vaccine and how effective it would be: “Should it be effective, that would make a big difference and universities could begin enrolling thousands of foreign students again.”

Insufficient quarantining arrangements

If the states and territories had plans for safely bringing students to Australia, the federal government would consider them, he said.

“We’re open to looking at all options, but we’re asking the education providers to work with the state governments, come up with their plans, get the tick-off by their state chief medical officers, and then present them to us. 

“That’s the process. Now, the state governments are working through those things, along with the higher education providers, but we’re not at that stage yet where we’re in the position to be able to have significant quarantining arrangements for those international students.

“I would say, though, that what gives me a bit of hope is that if the vaccine is effective and even it’s rolled out only partially in some of the major source countries, and if those students have been vaccinated, then there’s the potential for them to come into Australia without having to quarantine.”

The government would have to be sure that the vaccines worked, that the students had been vaccinated with a proper vaccine, and that they were safe to come into the country, Tudge said.

As the minister pointed out, foreign students and the fees they paid had become an AU$40 billion (US$30.6 billion) a year industry for Australian universities. It was the nation’s fourth-biggest export industry and it supported 250,000 jobs. 

“If I can be slightly optimistic, we still have a lot of enrolments into our universities of students who are offshore, but now studying online. And we’ve made a lot of changes to facilitate that, as have the universities and higher education providers themselves.”

Foreign enrolments falling

Tudge said foreign student enrolments at the end of last year were only down about 5% in the public universities, whereas the more significant decline had occurred among the private higher education providers. 

“They’ve had about a 30% to 40% enrolment decline. And they’re the ones that are probably hurting the most at the moment, along with some of the English language providers. 

“The public universities and some of the colleges are down, but not too much. We are obviously keeping a very close eye on what the enrolments look like in this academic year.”

Universities were all looking at how to recover and do things differently in the absence of the same level of international students of the past few years, he said. 

“We’re assisting with that process as well. We put an extra billion dollars in research dollars last year as well as 30,000 more places for Australian students this year, which helps their revenue as well.”

Increased domestic enrolment

Tudge said the universities now had more domestic students enrolling because of the measures the government had put in place and he was hopeful that international student numbers would remain as they were.

“I hope they do come back because they have been very good for Australia, for our economy, for our society. We want to get those numbers back and I’m going to be working with the sector to do so. 

“But we’ve got to take it very carefully, guided by the health advice. Obviously, overseas Australians are keen to come back as well and they get priority over the existing quarantine arrangements. But I’m still hopeful that at some stage, we will be able to get more significant numbers of foreign students,” he said.