International education is Australia’s third-largest export, worth nearly $55 billion a year. Behind that figure are more than 600,000 individual students paying every step of the way. This is a story about what they actually pay — not the headline tuition, but the layers of cost most domestic students never see, and what the maths now demands of them.

1. The cost-of-living crisis everyone feels

Headline inflation has climbed steadily since 2024, and food has been one of the biggest contributors. This is the surface most people see and feel — the part that affects all Australians.

Australian inflation has climbed roughly 6.7% in just two years, with food and groceries among the biggest drivers — a baseline pressure every household now lives with.

2. Australia’s biggest student source countries

International students are not a fringe group. More than 4 million have studied here over twenty years, and the same handful of countries — China, India, Nepal — have supplied most of them. But notice the red bars for 2025: in many countries those numbers are now collapsing.

China, India, and Nepal alone account for more than 1.7 million of Australia’s international students over two decades — but the 2025 cohort is shrinking sharply, with overall numbers down 7.7% on the previous year.

3. The hidden surcharge: every cost has climbed

The cost-of-living crisis is one thing for citizens. For international students, every step of access has its own price tag — and those have climbed even faster. The student visa application fee alone has tripled in two years, making Australia’s the most expensive study visa in the world.

The student visa application fee alone has more than tripled since 2019, jumping from $575 to $2,000 in six years.

4. Working the maximum, just to meet the minimum

This is where the maths breaks down. The government sets two numbers: the legal cap on student work hours, and the required weekly funds for a student visa. Even working at the legal maximum, on minimum wage, an international student barely covers the official minimum living cost — and that’s before Sydney or Melbourne rents.

Even working the legal maximum at minimum wage, an international student earns roughly the same as the official “minimum” living requirement — the system is calibrated to leave zero buffer for real-world Sydney or Melbourne rents.

5. The consequence: hunger reaches the universities

In a country this wealthy, more than half of university students surveyed in 2024 reported food insecurity in the past year. The Foodbank Hunger Report shows the same: renters and students are now among the groups most likely to skip meals to make rent.

Renting households and university students — two categories where international students are heavily over-represented — sit well above the national average for food insecurity, closing the gap on the most vulnerable groups.

What this means

The visa surcharge isn’t a single fee — it’s a stack. And every layer of the stack has grown faster than wages, faster than rents, and faster than the system’s own minimum-funds requirement. That stack is now showing up in food bank queues. The question isn’t whether international students are “worth it” to Australia’s economy. The question is whether the country has noticed what it’s quietly charging them — and what’s slipping through the cracks because of it.

Data Source

Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2026). Consumer Price Index, Australia, April 2026. https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/price-indexes-and-inflation/consumer-price-index-australia/latest-release

Department of Education. (2026). International students studying in Australia between 2005 and 2025. Australian Government. https://www.education.gov.au/international-education-data-and-research/international-students-studying-australia-between-2005-and-2024

Department of Home Affairs. (2025). Student visa (Subclass 500). Australian Government. https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/getting-a-visa/visa-listing/student-500

Fair Work Commission. (2025). National minimum wage. Australian Government. https://www.fwc.gov.au/agreements-awards/awards/awards-overview/national-minimum-wage

Foodbank Australia. (2025). Foodbank Hunger Report 2025. https://reports.foodbank.org.au/foodbank-hunger-report-2025/

University of Wollongong. (2025, December 23). Many Australian uni students are worried about food. UOW Media. https://www.uow.edu.au/media/2025/many-australian-uni-students-are-worried-about-food.php