Australia’s government has increased the immigration risk ratings of a multitude of countries and universities, in a bureaucratic version of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Six of Australia’s top 10 source countries for international students – India, Nepal, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Colombia and Pakistan – are now ranked high risk by the Department of Home Affairs, according to Times Higher Education’s analysis. Another three – Vietnam, Indonesia and Sri Lanka – carry medium-risk ratings.
Of the top 10 markets, only China now bears a low-risk stamp of approval. Students from countries considered risky are required to supply additional paperwork with their visa applications, depending on the separate risk ratings of the institutions they have enrolled with, and they tend to be viewed with extra suspicion by processing officials.
Bhutan, Kenya, Mongolia and Thailand are among the other significant source markets in the high-risk bracket, while Brazil, Cambodia and Chile are medium risk.
Meanwhile, some 22 universities – including 13 regionally based institutions – now carry moderate risk ratings, up from 13 before the latest adjustment to the ratings on 30 September.
Ten of the 14 universities that were promoted to the low-risk category a year ago have now had those decisions reversed.
The ratings are based on metrics, including visa rejections. With visa refusals now at record levels, an impact on the risk ratings of both countries and institutions seemed a foregone conclusion.
International education consultant Dirk Mulder said the adjustment was more than an administrative refresh. “It provides another indication of how student visa outcomes across the previous 12 months are being reflected in the risk settings applied to future applicants,” Mulder wrote in his Koala international education newsletter.
“For providers and agents, the immediate question is not simply which countries or institutions have moved between levels, but what those movements mean for applicants sitting somewhere between enquiry, application and visa submission. Provider behaviour, applicant behaviour and visa outcomes are feeding into settings that can ultimately change the evidence burden faced by the next group of students.”
While the federal government has allocated quotas for universities’ international student admissions, visa rejections are now functioning as de facto caps.
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