The Master Rorters

Australia's migration industrial complex continues to churn at full speed

Written by Flynn Holman, find more of his content on 𝕏 @Flynn_Holman_

This week I heard the story of an international student from India currently living in Australia which exposed to me the lengths these students will go to in order to remain in Australia.

Fatima (name changed for privacy) graduated with a bachelor’s degree in communications at the end of 2024. Her visa has only a few weeks remaining and yet she has no plans to leave the country. She knows just how much better life is in Australia, and she is unwilling to give that up to return home to the squalor of family life in India. Through a combination of international student networks, university support and weak immigration laws, international students like Fatima are actively organising to help each other remain in the country. Her’s is only one story, yet it highlights a fundamental problem with our temporary migration system - a system that is being systematically exploited by international students to remain in Australia long after their student visas have expired. Worst of all, they’re doing so completely within the purveiw of the law!

Despite many international students finishing their degrees with the conclusion of the academic year in October and November, under Australia’s current student visa system, international students are given until mid-March to leave the country after the completion of their degrees. This time is notionally a grace period to allow international students to organise their return home, but many are taking advantage of this leniency to devise ways to remain in Australia long after their student visas have expired. 1 in 3 international students who have completed their studies in Australia have continued to live, work and study here after they graduate. As just the latest in a long line of international students seeking a path to permanent residency, Fatima has used abundant ethnic networks to help her navigate Australia’s immigration laws and establish the path of least resistance toward securing her stay here for as long as possible.

Today, Fatima is ready to start on the next step of her journey towards permanent residency - the master’s degree. This degree program has been carefully designed in Australian universities to facilitate large numbers of international students and ensure a continued supply of money into university coffers. A coursework master’s degree is not a traditional part of Australia’s tertiary education system and has conventionally only been offered to students who are re-training into a new profession. The connotations of such a qualification, particularly from the research institutions of the United States, has encouraged Australian universities to design master’s courses with vague titles like "Sustainability", "Business Administration" or "International Business", marketed specifically towards international students. These courses are often conducted primarily online, with very little face-to-face teaching and feature content which would be simplistic in a bachelor’s degree.

After discussions with her university’s international office, and fellow migrants living in her sharehouse, Fatima has chosen the Masters of Business Administration (MBA) offered through the University of Sydney. The MBA is the most common choice for international students studying master’s degrees in Australia and is offered by most universities and many private colleges looking to gain significant revenue from high international student fees. At the University of Sydney, this degree can be undertaken on a part time basis over the course of 3 years, costing upwards of $60,000 per year. The degree is advertised with vague descriptors like, “Master the art of taking theory and turning it into real-world practical solutions” or as having “content tailored to equip experienced managers with the knowledge, skills and attributes that they need to adapt, lead and succeed in the context of change” to attract many migrants with the appeal of appearing more employable in Australia upon completion.

All this may seem very legitimate, after all Australian universities are allowed to offer whichever degree programs they choose, but the veneer of legitimacy is removed by the reality of the sheer number of MBAs offered at Australian institutions. Today, Australia offers more than double the number of MBAs per person than any other region on Earth. With the business sector in Australia significantly smaller than that of Asia, Europe or North America, the fact that so many Australian institutions offer this degree program reveal just how much of a international student scam this degree is.

Fatima doesn't care about the degree. Her undergraduate was in communications. In fact, she is more than willing to pay $180,000 solely for the opportunity to stay in the country. This offers her the chance to work 40 hours a week (probably off the books), to look for a boyfriend to make a permanent visa application easier and to pass all her courses with little effort because, for international students, most marks have a habit of rounding up to a pass standard. Whilst doing this she is also applying for rentals and occupying a sharehouse in an already overburdened Sydney housing market. None of this is to mention the bridging visa she will be granted while she waits for her new degree to start in August.

Not only is this a common occurrence in Australia's educational system, but it is also a process that is actively encouraged and advertised to prospective international students in their home countries. Australia's universities consistently rank inside the top 100 global institutions, yet their financial stability is dependent upon international students. With few prestigious universities across Southern and Southeast Asia, the lure of an Australian degree is an easy sell. In 2024 Australian institutions enrolled almost 1 million migrants combined. Of these students, 300,000 would be expected to undertake a similar process to Fatima, whether they continue to search for further study, or look for a job here before their visa runs out. Whilst our universities continue to rely on international students for their financial viability, this backdoor into permanent residency will remain open and we will continue to see tens of thousands of migrants just like Fatima use the university system to remain in Australia every single year.

The concept of education as Australia's third biggest export is one often quoted by politicians, and certainly universities, to justify the large intake of immigrants. Yet with the number of immigrants that continue to live in Australia so high, the net benefit must be re-examined. Temporary migration is a significant cause behind the stagnation of wages and rising house prices. It is reasonable to allow limited international students to study at Australian universities, but if we are to become serious about improving life for the domestic Australian student, we must be willing to significantly limit the proportion of international places our domestic institutions are allowed to offer, and reform the student visa to eliminate the opportunity for these students to stay onshore indefinitely. Australian universities need to focus on the education of Australian students and while their major income continues to be derived from international enrolments, they will remain institutions which are compromised by foreign interest, unable to satisfy the needs of a nationalist nation.