As Education Minister Simon Birmingham announced in budget 2018 on 2nd May 2017, Australia universities will face a 2.5 percent cut to their teaching payments in the coming two years
University fees are set to increase by 1.8 per cent next year and continue rising to a total of 7.5 per cent by 2021.
Starting from next July, local graduate will have to repay their student loan once they start earning $42,000 rather than the current threshold of about $55,000, the whole package is expected to save $2.8 billion for the federal government in the next four years.
In which, around 200 protesters demonstrated outside a Brisbane luncheon speech by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on 17th May 2017, angry over budget changes to higher education.
International students face significant increase in tuition fee for higher education in Australia
(Source: University of Queensland)
Despite the the increase in financial burden to domestic students, international students in Australia will be facing an even higher increase in tuition fee than local students as the universities announces their tuitions fee in 2018.
Unlike local students, international students in universities will have to pay an extra 3.5 per cent to 11 per cent each semester for their coming academic year in 2018.
The University of Queensland had established their tuition fee for international students 2018, to study popular programme like Bachelor of Engineering and Bachelor of Business Management, foreign student in 2018 will have to pay an extra $600 to $1200 each semester.
While the course fee for Bachelor of Arts in University of Queensland had significantly increase by 11 per cent, which is one of the programme with most increase in indicative semester fee in 2018, which is far higher that the 1.5 per cent increase for local students.
Would it discourage international student studying abroad in Australia
According to the international student data monthly summary by the Department of Education and Training of the Australian Government established on March 2017, there are 279 thousands of international students currently receiving higher education in Australia.
Over half of them are from Asia, 30 per cent of them are from China ,11 per cent are from India, while Malaysia and Vietnam took the third and the fourth place.
Jessica Choi, Manager of Student services in Modern Education believes Australia will still remain as a popular country for foreign students to study abroad despite the significant increase in university fee for international students .
She pointed out that the costs of studying in Australia are considerably lower than in the UK and the US, and students can work part-time and access scholarships and grants, which is what Australia stand out from other countries.
“Comparing to other English speaking country, the potential of urban development as well as the technological innovations would still attract many foreign students. There are plenty of visa options for students who want to stay and work in Australia after graduation.”
Chan also added that the relatively warm weather and the reputation of Australian universities are factors that international students in Asia will continue prioritize Australia as the country to study abroad in.
Over the last two years, international students in Australia has continuously increased by 12 per cent in 2016 and 15 per cent in 2017.
April Siu, GEA institutions agency of Modern Education GEA (Global Education Alliance) Hong Kong said that the despite the increase upcoming increase for tuition fee in Australia, the depreciation of Australian dollar in the last two years is the factor that Australian universities remain its popularity among Hong Kong parents when it comes to consideration school fees.
(Source: Department of Education and Training of the Australian Government)
(Source: Department of Education and Training of the Australian Government)
International student representative of Study Brisbane, Ralph Teodoro said that in this stage, their community have no plan to do any sort of protest against the increase in tuition fee for international students in Australia, while Tylor Kelly, representative of Right to the city – Brisbane also replied that at this stage they have no planning on doing any event to discuss this issue, as most of their energies are focused on building up the campaign for something instead of a casino to be built at North Banks.
Reference
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/05/17/students-protest-turnbulls-uni-budget-measures
https://future-students.uq.edu.au/files/6387/UG_International_Indicative_Fees_2018.pdf