For many years, Australia has been considered a desirable place for international students due to its prestigious universities, diverse environment, work opportunities, and chances of improving oneself after graduation. For this reason, this country has often been referred to as a “lucky country” by prospective students wishing to study and live abroad.
After the shock experienced due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, a new context emerged, which has made the position of international students even more challenging. The latter are currently arriving in Australia at a time when all expenses related to everyday life are rising. Higher prices for such essential expenses as accommodation, food, transport, and other necessities put additional strain on the students, many of whom are either employed part-time or supported by their families.
The purpose of this data story is to analyze using open data whether it can be stated that Australia continues to be a lucky country for international students. More specifically, it will focus on the problem of affordability of studying in the country and whether the growth of living expenses, especially the rental cost, makes life even harder for the students.
Prior to discussing the issue of affordability, it should be noted that it is crucial to examine whether the trend of international students coming back to Australia even exists. The rise in enrolment implies that the country retains its attractiveness as an educational destination despite the challenges caused by the pandemic. Nonetheless, an increase in enrolments does not indicate how difficult it is for students upon their arrival to the destination.
Below is the chart representing enrolments for the year-to-date in the various sectors of international education.
As can be seen from the chart, student enrollments at various levels of education recovered quite positively post-pandemic and have continued growing in terms of higher education and vocational education and training. The former one remains the sector with the most enrollments, proving that Australian universities are the ones primarily responsible for recruiting international students. The latter sector also experiences robust growth indicating that many students prefer to pursue career-oriented studies.
Unfortunately, there are certain education levels where enrollments are far lower than at the aforementioned sectors. Specifically, ELICOS, schools, and non-award studies represent a much smaller share of students coming from abroad. Thus, the process of restoring the flow of foreign students is quite uneven across different educational institutions.
In summary, it should be said that the overall picture revealed by the chart is rather mixed. While it can be concluded that Australia has remained an attractive destination among foreign students, there is no information about whether or not students will be able to have decent living conditions while attending universities or colleges. It explains why the following section discusses housing issues related to students’ rent.
Having established the rate of international student returns, we can now examine the affordability of housing. In fact, for many international students, rents are the largest weekly expenditures and often determine where they live, what distances they cover, and the amount of funds left over for other purposes such as food, transportation, and study materials.
For this reason, this issue becomes very important for cities like Melbourne, as many universities and accommodation facilities are located either in the area or in the vicinity of the city centers. As rent rates rise in these areas, international students will struggle to live closer to university. This situation is illustrated below using selected Melburnian areas that are significant to students.
As illustrated by the chart above, rent prices have increased in many student-friendly neighborhoods in Melbourne after the period of the pandemic. There has been a noticeable rise in some locations from 2022. This means that international students who have returned to Australia will experience a high-priced rental market compared to previous times.
It is relevant since rent expense is inflexible. In contrast to entertainment and shopping costs, which students can choose to minimize, rent is necessary and must be paid in full without any delays. Therefore, students might have to work extra hours, move farther from their educational institution, live together with a larger number of roommates, or cut back expenses in different spheres of life.
In conclusion, this chart reflects how the return of international students can be characterized both as a recovery story and an affordability one. While the former is associated with positive dynamics in Australia, the latter relates to a financial challenge for students.
Renting is a clear indicator of the financial pressure that international students experience. However, it does not account for all the additional expenses that a student incurs in the process of living. These include expenses on food, transport, energy, Internet, study materials, and other costs. Even slight increases in prices in these areas result in significant pressure on a student.
The information provided in the form of CPI data may help in comparing the changes in different aspects of students’ lives in order to identify whether the main pressure is created by the rent or there is an overall increase in costs of student life. The categories selected for analysis in the graph below include food, rent, transport, utilities, and education costs.
The graph demonstrates that rent is not the only thing going up in price. There has been an increase in food, transportation, utility, and education expenses. In other words, international students do not face just one problem with finances but rather several expenses that go up at once.
It matters because students often have restricted income during their studies. Most international students rely on themselves, part-time work, or financial support from families, which means that they are sensitive to changes in the cost of living. All at once, rising expenses will mean that students have fewer funds available for studying or even personal needs.
In conclusion, we can see that the problem of affordability in Australia goes beyond the issue of affordable housing. Renting might be the first thing coming to mind, yet increased cost of living impacts the affordability of staying in Australia for international students.
It is only a partial solution to look at price increases in isolation from other factors. The importance of such an increase can be gauged better if the rate of increase exceeds that of income. In the case of foreign students, this aspect needs consideration since many of them depend on temporary employment for covering their rent payments and everyday living costs during their studies.
The graph below presents this problem with the help of indices where both rent and wages have been indexed to the same base year. Thus, the question will arise about whether the rates of these two indices are the same.
It can be seen that rents have been growing at a higher rate compared to the wages since 2022. That means that the rent price has been rising at a rate faster than the wages earned by students who will be able to find jobs to support themselves.
This situation is bound to place international students in a precarious situation as they will have to allocate a significant portion of their earnings to pay for rent, thus having less income to spend on food, travel expenses, utilities, and other costs related to studies. Some students may need to put in extra hours to earn more money, while others may opt for alternative solutions like moving far from their place of studies or asking for financial help from their families.
In conclusion, the chart indicates that the main problem is not high rents but the rapid increase in rents compared to wage growth.
Nationally or state-wide statistics might demonstrate an increase in the cost of rent, yet they fail to capture the reality that international students face with regard to affordable housing. International students are not living in “Australia”; rather, they reside in particular suburbs and local councils that usually border universities, public transport, and employment centers offering part-time jobs for students.
This means that location matters, and the situation that a student faces in terms of paying rent will differ depending on where they reside. As such, the chart below displays the differences in median weekly rental costs in selected areas of Melbourne.
As we can see from the graph, there is variability in rent pressure around the city of Melbourne. Areas like Melbourne, Yarra, Monash, Boroondara, and Stonnington have a higher median rent per week than other more remote areas. The reason why they matter is that they are close to universities, hostels, transport links, or major economic centers.
That is, affordability is not an issue only at the national level. It becomes the issue of a particular place too. Those students who prefer living near universities will pay higher rent, whereas others living farther away will have a lower cost for housing but spend more money for transportation.
In general, what the above chart reveals is that affordability is highly dependent on local housing markets. This implies that not all students enjoy the “lucky country” feeling as it can be affected by the locality one chooses.
The situation creates a dilemma. The influx of international students to Australia seems unchanged, and even the recovery in numbers indicates that the effects of the pandemic have been mitigated by now. Clearly, Australia still remains an important educational destination. On the other hand, students return to an entirely new environment, in which rents increase in certain regions of Melbourne, daily costs have gone up, and rent growth seems to outpace wage growth.
It does not suggest that Australia is not an attractive destination for international students anymore. Instead, this situation demonstrates that the image of Australia as a lucky country requires a reconsideration. The opportunities for receiving high-quality education remain, but their cost seems to have grown, too. Indeed, international students face the problem not just of studying in a particular university, but also paying for it and surviving on the campus.
All in all, perhaps Australia is still a lucky nation for some overseas students; however, there are no guarantees anymore. The student’s experience greatly depends on his or her income, accommodation cost, location, and management of increasing expenses. Should Australia wish to stay an inviting destination for overseas students, affordability must become an integral part of the educational experience.