Australian immigration has announced plans to increase the fees charged to foreign students wishing to study in Australia with a student visa.
The increases, which will result in student visa fees increasing by around 20%, will come into play next year, after the changes were announced in the budget.
The current student visa application fee is AU$450. This will increase to $540 from January 2010. The increase comes despite the need to attract students to study in Australia as they bring with them a vital source of income for the economy.
The increases are expected to boost revenues by $400 million, providing the numbers of students moving to Australia to study do not reduce as a result of the price hikes.
The increases are intended to help pay for the country’s migration and temporary entrant programme. However, the fee increase has attracted criticism from the National Union of Students which claims fees have increased by 90% over just 12 years and are now higher than the countries Australia competes against to attract students.
Universities Australia is also concerned that the fee increase, although a small amount in comparison to the cost of study overall, is symbolic and may put people off but figures released by Australia immigration show a 20 per cent growth on the same time last year.
Australia remains a popular destination for thousands of overseas students on study visas. Earlier this month, Gulshan Kumar, a former Education Officer with the Australian High Commission, said Australia immigration was the ideal choice for international student visa holders because the recession has not affected it as severely as other western countries.
“The number of Indian students going to Australia is still increasing, in fact, I think these numbers may go higher, as many of the students who have lost their jobs in India would like to avail this opportunity to upgrade their education and skill level,” said Kumar.