AAP FACTCHECK – Coalition politicians’ claim that international student numbers in Australia have “almost doubled” since Labor came to power is missing important context.
The latest education department figures for August 2024 show a 69.4 per cent increase in international students in Australia compared to May 2022, when Labor won government.
This represents an increase of just over two-thirds, while a doubling would be a 100 per cent increase.
Experts say the claim also fails to give context to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on international student trends in Australia.
The latest figure is about six per cent higher than the peak in student numbers before the pandemic in December 2019, when the coalition was in power.
Looking at the last comparable month, August 2019, the increase is 14.5 per cent.
Opposition education spokeswoman Sarah Henderson and finance spokeswoman Jane Hume made the claim after Labor proposed a cap of 270,000 on the number of new international student commencements in 2025.
The coalition has since opposed the cap.
“Since the Albanese government was elected, based on the latest numbers, the number of international students studying in Australia has almost doubled,” Senator Henderson said during the debate of the bill.
“In May 2022, when the Albanese government was elected, there were 474,493 international students in Australia.
“At Senate estimates, just a few weeks ago, the Department of Education admitted that the number of international students has now risen in this country to more than 800,000 – to 803,639.”
Senator Hume repeated the claim during an ABC interview (25 minutes 6 seconds) on November 19, a clip of which was posted to her Instagram account.
Senator Henderson’s office told AAP FactCheck the figures come from the Department of Education’s monthly summary.
A department spokesperson said the figures were a cumulative total of the number of international students in an academic year.
The figures show a 69.4 per cent increase in the number of international students from 474,493 in May 2022 to 803,639 in August 2024.
Under the coalition in the months before the pandemic, student numbers peaked at 756,738 in December 2019.
The increase from the December 2019 figure to August 2024 is 6.2 per cent.
Andrew Norton, a higher education expert at the Australian National University, said May 2022 was a misleading start date for comparing the impacts of government policies on international student numbers.
Professor Norton said onshore enrolments were low between March 2020 and December 2021 due to Australian and Chinese COVID-19 restrictions.
“International student numbers were … always going to increase significantly as the borders reopened,” he told AAP FactCheck.
“This includes students who already had a visa but were stuck offshore and new students.”
He said that 2019, the last full year of the coalition government before the pandemic border restrictions began, was the better comparison point.
The August 2024 figure is 14.5 per cent higher than the August 2019 figure of 701,727.
Prof Norton said the “significant growth” in student numbers was to be expected regardless of who was in power.
Abul Rizvi, an immigration policy expert and a former deputy secretary of the Department of Immigration, said if the pandemic had not occurred, the four-year net migration forecast from the 2019 budget suggested the number of international students in Australia would be similar to the current total.
“The fact is the student contribution to net migration and the stock of students was rising strongly in the five years prior to COVID,” he told AAP FactCheck.
Dr Rizvi suggested the main reasons for the post-pandemic increase had been the former coalition government temporarily allowing international students to work unrestricted hours and making visa applications free for eight weeks in early 2022.
He said the former government’s subclass 408 visa, known as the “COVID visa”, which international students could apply for at no cost to get 12 months’ work rights, was also “very attractive to many students”.
“These factors set the scene for the massive student boom, which the Labor Govt was too slow to respond to,” Dr Rizvi said.
Professor Christopher Ziguras, director of the Centre for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Melbourne, said it was “hardly surprising” the number of international students increased after the pandemic drop.
The Verdict
Misleading – The claim is accurate in parts but information has also been presented incorrectly, out of context or omitted.
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