Strong Australian Dollar Makes Australian Education Expensive For Foreign Students: A Soured Dream

Decline In Educational Sector: There has been a drastic decline in the percentage in the flux of foreign students arriving in Australia for continuing higher education in educational institutions spread out all over the country. The drop of around 30 percent was significant in Australia and much higher as compared to last year. The total number of admissions registered a decrease of around 2.5 percent among other foreign students.

The Australian Universities and Colleges which form the backbone of the billion dollar international education sector became the largest sufferers and had to bear this colossal loss from the sudden decline in admissions. Both India and China are the dominant countries in the world, who have the largest number of students going over to Australia for higher education. A large number of Indian students refrained from moving to Australia for higher education in their Colleges. It had earlier become a status symbol for any student to have studied in Australia.

Background Of The Decline: One of the basic reasons for such a dramatic downfall is attributed to the phenomenal rise of the Australian Dollar in the international market. The strength of the Australian Dollar has resulted in the higher costs of living in all the major cities across Australia and especially in the capital cities which made it impossible for them to live in Australia and survive without scooping out a major amount of local currency from their homeland. In fact, some of the major areas of education that faced this sharp drop were in the vocational courses such as hair dressing and cooking where the drop was around 21.5 percent. There was widespread speculation that with the rise of the Australian Dollar would further affect the education market adversely, as it would dissuade the potential student to select Australia as a place to study.

With rise in the cost of living and the gaining strength of the Australian Dollar, the student community would prefer to move over to the United States rather than Australia. It was a different matter when Australia was considered to be a haven for education, but in the present scenario, things have taken a turn for the worse.

Off To Fresh Pastures: However, the changes in the visa rules during the last year have further deterred students from coming to Australia and are looking for fresh pastures in countries in Europe, US, Canada and the UK in case there were no positive changes made in the visa regulations. Since the US had an edge of its prestigious education standards over all other universities in the world, Australia could not compete with them in the wake of the rising cost of education and the high costs of living coupled with the racial attacks on foreign students on their soil led towards this trend, which is rather dangerous for the education sector is more likely to carry on throughout 2011 and may continue further in to the future also.