When a commercial administrator at a Buenos Aires import-export company applied for a six-month visa to hone his language skills at Lexis English in Australia, the ¡°guaranteed¡± job awaiting him on his return home did not convince the officials that he would leave after finishing his course.

¡°I give more weight to¡­the applicant¡¯s potential economic circumstances in Colombia,¡± the rejection letter says. ¡°The applicant implied a career pathway intention in Colombia [but]¡­I am not satisfied that the course would result in the claimed employment benefits in Colombia.¡±

Lexis managing director Ian Pratt said the repeated references to the Argentinian applicant¡¯s Colombian homeland were a clear ¡°cut-and-paste¡± error, with the correspondence containing identical paragraphs to many other rejection letters.

¡°We see them get the name of the student wrong. We see them get the name of the school wrong. I suspect¡­you¡¯ve got some poor guy sitting there who¡¯s inadequately trained and rushed, making bad decisions quickly.¡±

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The A$710 (?366) application fees students must pay for this ¡°grossly inadequate¡± service is roughly equivalent to three weeks¡¯ average salary for an Argentinian, or five weeks for a Colombian. Mr Pratt said he could not ¡°fathom¡± private companies treating clients in this way.

¡°Perfectly eligible students who¡¯ve done everything right are being refused on what appears to be a whim. They¡¯re making the biggest decision of their life to travel to Australia. They¡¯ve saved up for years. [Our] government¡­tells us that they¡¯re trying to protect students being abused by our sector. By far the worst abuser of students is our government.¡±

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Its approach could backfire economically, after international education earned the country about A$48 billion last year, surpassing the 2019 record by almost A$8 billion.

Australian Bureau of Statistics figures suggest that the industry could be preventing Australia¡¯s tepid economy lapsing into recession. The A$3.1 billion growth in gross domestic product over the third and fourth quarters of 2023 was eclipsed by the A$3.4 billion increase in spending by foreign students.

The Department of ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Affairs says all visa applications are ¡°assessed on merits of the individual cases¡± against publicly disclosed legal requirements. College principals and?vice-chancellors?say the ¡°bewildering¡± rejections suggest otherwise.

Mr Pratt said neighbouring countries with ¡°identical risk profiles¡± were attracting vastly different grant rates, while schools with different risk assessment levels were attracting similar grant rates. ¡°We were told that schools with a better assessment level would receive preferential treatment. It¡¯s not the case.

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¡°The students haven¡¯t changed. We haven¡¯t changed. The system has changed. And the government hasn¡¯t told us what they¡¯ve changed it to.¡±

He said the most common grounds for refusal was that Australia¡¯s high wages were a ¡°disincentive¡± for students to leave. ¡°On that basis, they can refuse an application from every country except Norway and Switzerland. It¡¯s the classic cover-all.¡±

Mr Pratt said it was too early to tell whether the crisis would match the ¡°perfect storm¡± 15 years ago, when private college enrolments were undermined by the combined impacts of regulatory change, violence against students and a soaring Australian dollar.

But universities would feel the impacts this time around, partly because of the government¡¯s proposal to boost??to an ¡°extremely challenging¡± level for students from regions such as Latin America.

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¡°They¡¯re going to require pre-training,¡± he said. ¡°But they¡¯re far from assured of a visa even [to study] English.¡±

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com