The university sector expects a controversial visa processing direction to be replaced before the end of the year, despite the education minister previously vowing it will remain until international student caps can be enforced.
Ministerial Direction 107 was introduced a year ago and requires immigration officials to prioritise the visa applications of students with offers from “lower-risk” sandstone institutions, slowing the process for some smaller universities.
In an email newsletter to members, Universities Australia said the directive had wreaked havoc on the sector and it expected the new direction would be “fairer across the board and deliver some of the certainty and stability that we have been promised and so desperately need”.
Education Minister Jason Clare has repeatedly described Ministerial Direction 107 as a “de facto” cap on international students, with about 60,000 fewer higher education visas granted in 2023-24 compared to the previous year.
The government had planned to replace the direction — which peak bodies have slammed as a “sledgehammer approach” — with individualised international student caps for each provider.
That was foiled when the Coalition announced it would vote against a bill that would have given the education minister the power to impose limits on an institution-by-institution basis.
Mr Clare insisted Ministerial Direction 107 would remain in place until caps were imposed, despite acknowledging it was a “blunt instrument” that had a disproportionate impact on smaller, regional universities.
But now the ABC understands the sector is preparing for a new version of the direction to be announced imminently, with the expectation that it will allow for a more equal system.
Luke Sheehy, the chief executive of Universities Australia, has long called for the directive to be revoked, warning it had left many outer-suburban and regional universities “on their knees due to the financial impact of this destructive instrument”.
“We can’t have a bright and vibrant higher education sector that delivers for all Australians without the revenue international education brings to our universities,” he said last month.
Ministerial Direction 107 widely criticised as unfair
The shift comes after some regional universities warned that continuing with the same visa processing system would be “disastrous” for their futures.
“Ministerial Direction 107 represents a significant policy failure and should not be in place a day longer,” Charles Sturt University vice-chancellor Renee Leon said last month.
Under Labor’s initial plan to impose caps, no more than 270,000 new international students would have been able to start studying in Australia next year. Within that, each higher education and vocational provider would have its own limit on the number of international students it could enrol.
Earlier this year, the government gave providers their “indicative” caps, which were calculated using a formula that took into account previous levels of international student commencements and the make-up of their student bodies.
According to those figures, prestigious universities such as the Australian National University and the University of New South Wales were set to be some of the biggest losers, with their 2025 international student enrolments reduced by close to 15 per cent compared to 2023 figures.
Both Labor and the Coalition have said they want a lower net overseas migration (NOM), which includes international students. The government said it expected the figure to be 260,000 over the financial year.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said in May the Coalition would aim for “about 160,000”, but more recently he refused to commit to a number and instead said the Coalition would make an assessment if it was elected to government.
Higher education and vocational international students made up about 35 per cent of temporary migrant arrivals in the previous financial year, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics data released this month.
Ministerial directions are decisions able to be made by government representatives and are not required to be passed by parliament. This means they can be changed or repealed at the minister’s discretion relatively quickly.
Former home affairs minister Clare O’Neil issued Ministerial Direction 107 in December last year in a bid to manage a glut of student visa applications received in the wake of the pandemic.
A Home Affairs Department spokesperson said in a statement on Tuesday that it would “remain in place to manage considerations of student visa applications in an orderly fashion until such a time as the government decides to revoke or replace the direction”.
“Government acknowledges that current visa processing arrangements are having an uneven impact on providers,” the spokesperson said.
“The department will continue to scrutinise the student visa caseload, where necessary, to support the government’s priority that only genuine students seeking to study in Australia are granted a visa — as opposed to those motivated by an employment or immigration outcome.”
