Australia is now firmly entrenched as the third most popular global destination for international students studying abroad, as the international student population continues to increase in both universities and other education sectors.
According to the latest research from Savills Australian Student Accommodation Market Report, Australia has a strong reliance on international students from a number of South East Asian countries.
The latest demographic information available indicates that international student growth is stronger as evidenced by enrolments in Higher Education courses with student visas growing by 11% from 2015 to 2016. China (28%), India (11%), Republic of Korea (4%), Thailand (4%) and Vietnam (4%) are the top five countries of origin for international students studying in Australia. In 2016, the strongest growth in international student numbers in Australia came from Brazil (20%), Malaysia (18%), Nepal (16%), Hong Kong (10%) and Colombia (22%).
According to the report, universities across Australia also continue to be significant participants within the market, with 71,645 beds of Purpose Built Student Accommodation (PBSA) in the eight Australian capital cities. The existing supply in each city is less than 11% of the full-time student population with the exception of Canberra (28%).
According to Conal Newland, Director of Student Accommodation at Savills Australia, Australia’s student population is continuing to grow at a steady rate. The latest data available indicates that total student enrolments grew by 2.7% from 2014 to 2015, an increase of 36,903 students. International student numbers increased by just less than 4.5% in 2015. All of this growth is attributed to full-time international students which increased by almost 5.5%. Part-time international student numbers fell by 0.8% in 2015
“New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland have the greatest number of student enrolments with Victoria achieving the largest increase in enrolment numbers year on year, with an increase of 4.4% compared to 2014. Of all the states, Tasmania saw the largest increase of 9.9% growth in 2015 with multi-state higher education providers increasing by 6.7%
“The number of international students enrolled in Higher Education courses and utilising study visas in Australia has grown by 10.9% from 2015 to 2016, a marginally higher increase than the year previous” he said.
There were 554,179 international students studying on a student visa in Australia in 2016 which represents an 11.3% increase over 2015 figures (498,155 student visas). The top five nationalities are China, India, Republic of Korea, Thailand and Vietnam. China is the largest international student country of origin which contributed over 27% of the total number of international students in Australia in 2016. The country with the highest percentage of growth is Columbia with growth rate of 22.4% from 2015 to 2016.