The Australian Prime Minister announced (this week) that the student visa application charge will be rebated for international students who arrive in Australia in the next eight weeks.
Students will still need to pay the $630 visa application charge when lodging but they can expect a rebate down the line.
Australia’s foreign education sector is one of Australia’s top 4 industries after mining agriculture and tourism (or it was before covid…).
Unfortunately it has been smashed by the pandemic as foreign students could not even enter the country to study here for most of 2020 and 2021…
I know of education providers who saw turnover drop from $30M-$35m per year in 2019, down to less than $100k per year in 2020 and 2021.
Very few businesses can survive that sort of disruption.The government needs to help the industry to rebuild, and this is a small step in the right direction.