As international student applications to study in Australia have dropped by 51 percent since March 2021, universities across the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada are benefiting from another international study destination being taken out of the mix.
While the Australian international education market suffered from the crash, the international student market in Canada grew by 148 percent, in the UK by 150 percent, and in the United States by a massive 422 percent.
Key Takeaways:
- Since March 2021, international student applications to study in Australia have dropped by 51 percent.
- Universities across the US, the UK, and Canada gain from Australia’s international education market collapse.
- Several factors contributed to the collapse, including Australia’s strict border closures, prolonged uncertainty, and a spike in Australian tuition fees.
The crash of the international education market in Australia may be due to the country’s strict border closures and prolonged uncertainty among prospective students.
Australia banned the entry of all non-citizens in response to the pandemic last March 2020, which posed difficulties to Australian-enrolled international students who were out of the country when the ban was announced and have since been unable to return.
From an Abcodo report in May 2021, the UK – British colleges and universities have reported a spike in international enrollment as Australia’s borders remain closed.
Moreover, Australian university profits significantly collapsed by AU$1.6 billion to just AU$669 million, based on a report by Victoria University’s Mitchell Institute.
Last August, Australian governments and educational institutions crafted plans to recover from more than two-thirds of the alarming fall in international student demand for universities compared to the pre-pandemic state of international education.
Despite these recovery plans, universities in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada continued to gain from the Australian international education market’s loss.
Apart from these factors, the spike in Australian tuition fees prevents students from investing in Australian education.
Abcodo is an MSM company that serves as the in-house recruitment partner of MSM Unify, a student recruitment and marketing platform that connects partner schools to top-tier agents and their students worldwide. Sign up now to get the latest updates and information on international student recruitment.
