205,854, or 33.5 per cent, according to the most recent government data. Complicating this picture is that many international students will be studying offshore because of the closed borders.
By October 2021, the number of international student visa holders in Australia was down to 266,000. In October 2019, before the pandemic, 578,000 international student visa holders were living in Australia. This is a reduction of over 300,000 international students living in Australia, or about 54 per cent.
The halving of the number of students living in Australia will be having profound effects on those who rely on the international education sector. About 60 per cent of the economic value of international education is a result of spending in the broader economy.
We can see this impact in the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data. The chart below shows the quarterly value of international education since June 2019. It also includes the value of students studying online.
According to the ABS, the value of the onshore international education sector was $5.5 billion in the June 2021 quarter, compared to $9.1 billion in the June 2019 quarter. While the growth in online learning has partly offset the losses, it is not enough to make up for the overall fall in international student revenue.
