In the year to date December 2025, 846,321 global students studied in Australia, representing a 0.5% decline compared to the very same duration in 2024. The number of new students in 2025 (202,882) fell more sharply, declining by 15% year-on-year, according to information launched by Australia’s Department of Education.
As many global trainees carry out more than one course within a reporting year, total enrolments reached 1,058,040 over the same period, marking a 3% decline compared to 2024. Beginnings likewise dropped substantially, falling by 15% to 479,104.
By sector, higher education recorded continued growth in enrolments, increasing by 10% compared to the previous year, followed by schools, which grew by 4%. All other sectors experienced declines, most significantly English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Trainees (ELICOS), which fell by 35%.
Student source markets stayed focused, with 57% of global students originating from simply five Asian nations: China (23%), India (17%), Nepal (8%), Vietnam (4%) and the Philippines (4%).
For Melanie Macfarlane, CEO and principal of MMMigration and Recruitment, the most recent figures do not come as a shock.
“I do not discover this unexpected at all, provided the sheer volume of trainee visa refusals we have seen and the greatest ever volume of Tribunal applications– I believe it depends on 48,000 now approx. compared to two years ago where they had 2,400 student visa refusals just.”
“News of this tends to spread out everywhere on social media and does not supply much rely on the visa system, especially with the high cost of a trainee visa now at AUD$ 2000, making it the most expensive visa on the planet, including for a 6 month English course,” said Macfarlane.
According to the information, Management and Commerce was the most popular field of study among global trainees in both college and veterinarian in Australia, followed by Information Technology in college and Food, Hospitality and Personal Providers in VET.
While enrolments by level of study stay strong, with master’s degrees by coursework (48%) and bachelor’s degrees (37%) leading in higher education, and diplomas (36%) and Certificate IV (20%) in VET, the sharp decline in the ELICOS sector could impact the entire global education pipeline in the long run.
Plainly stability and quality is a concern but I would state this is going too far and the tidy up of the sector is leading to the lowest stats in 20 years for
the English language sector Melanie Macfarlane, MMMigration and Recruitment”Plainly
stability and quality is an issue however I would say this is going too far and the clean up of the sector is leading to the lowest statistics in 20 years for the English language sector, which naturally feeds into college and the professional education sector,” specified Macfarlane.
Macfarlane, in addition to others in the market, is calling on the federal government to lower visa charges for ELICOS students, warning that this might lead to further closures in the sector and describing it as “such a pity for the Australian worldwide education sector, which has taken several years to develop given the country’s distance from the remainder of the world”.
In a recent op-ed for The PIE News, the country’s assistant minister for worldwide education alerted that the Australian government “will not back off from managing the size and the shape of the onshore international trainee market and continuous relocations towards a more sustainable sector”.
But he said in doing so, the government intends to “increase policy stability and reduce policy shocks that hinder our nation’s capability to continue to bring in the best and the brightest for a premium Australian education”.
< img src ="// www.w3.org/2000/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%200%200'%3E%3C/svg%3E"/ > < img src="https://thepienews.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/submit-your-nominations.jpg"/ >