Foreign students dominate Australia's leading universities

Australia's Department of Education reported that in the 2024–2025 academic year, 35% of all students in the country were from abroad, a 12.3% increase from the previous year, most of them from Asia, according to The Australian.

At prestigious universities such as Sydney and RMIT, international students account for 50% of enrollments, while large numbers also study at Monash, Queensland and New South Wales.

The University of Sydney in particular, for the first time in its 170-year-long history, had more foreign students than domestic ones last year, according to the Economic Times.

The most popular majors for overseas students include information technology (65%), management and commerce (54%) and engineering (41%). By contrast, few domestic students choose these fields, preferring health and the arts. At Wollongong and Central Queensland, only 15% of IT students are Australian.

The surge in foreign enrollment has raised concerns among experts over English proficiency.

Jobs and Skills Australia has urged testing of language skills both at admission and graduation. Abul Rizvi, an immigration analyst and former deputy secretary of the Department of Immigration, has proposed independent testing to ensure fairness with domestic students, who must compete via the ATAR ranking system. He also suggested raising the IELTS requirement from 6.5 to 7.0.

Australia has become one of the top global study destinations alongside the U.S. and Canada, with international student numbers up 62% in the past decade. Vietnam now ranks among the top four sources, with more than 33,000 students enrolled.

From 2026, top universities plan to raise tuition fees for international students by 5–13%. The steepest increase will hit business major at the University of Sydney, where tuition will reach AU$60,600 (US$40,093) per year.