In 2010, Saudi Arabia was 10th for international student enrolments in Australia. In 2025 it was 30th. As a Saudi student in Melbourne, I wanted to know what changed and where Saudi students study now.

From 10th to 30th

These five countries were 11th to 15th in 2010, just below Saudi Arabia. By 2025 all five were ahead. The chart starts with all five. Use the menu to compare Saudi Arabia with one country at a time. Numbers are course enrolments, not individual students.

Source: Department of Education (2026)

2. What changed for Saudi students?

In 2009, 60% of Saudi enrolments were English courses (ELICOS). By 2025, this had dropped to 17%. The drop started before 2022. Since 2022, the Saudi scholarship does not pay for English courses in English-speaking countries, and most scholarship tracks need an unconditional offer (Ministry of Education, n.d.; Packer, 2022).

Other includes VET, school and non-award courses.

Source: Department of Education (2026)

3. Where do Saudi students study now?

Victoria has had the most Saudi enrolments every year since 2014. Its share went from 23% in 2010 to 45% in 2025.

Purple line = Victoria. Other states = ACT, TAS, NT and NAT. Click a line to highlight a state.

Source: Department of Education (2026)

What this means

The Saudi students who still come are fewer, and most go straight into a degree. If you are a Saudi student planning to study here, finish your English test before you come. If you want to be near other Saudi students you may choose Victoria.

Data preparation

I downloaded the “December 2025 All data” file from the Department of Education website. The data is stored in an Excel pivot table, so I prepared it in Excel first. I set Month to Dec to get full-year totals, put Year, Nationality, State and Sector in the rows, and turned off subtotals and grand totals. Then I copied the table as values and saved it as student_enrolments.csv (68,513 rows). All other steps were done in R.

Acknowledgements

I used ChatGPT (OpenAI, 2026) as a learning and support tool during the preparation of this submission.I used it to translate and improve my understanding of some explanations, and help me understand part of the R code. I chose the topic and the title. The point about the Saudi scholarship rules was my own idea, and I checked it against the sources above. I ran all the code myself in RStudio and checked the results.

References

Department of Education. (2026). International student data for the year-to-date (YTD): December 2025 all data [Data set]. https://www.education.gov.au/international-data/international-student-monthly-summary-and-data-tables

Ministry of Education. (n.d.). Al-shurut [Conditions]. Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Scholarship Program. Retrieved October 24, 2026, from https://sites.moe.gov.sa/scholarship-program/conditions/

OpenAI. (2026). ChatGPT (version) [Large language model]. https://chatgpt.com/

Packer, H. (2022, May 11). New Saudi scholarship excludes English language funding. The PIE News. https://thepienews.com/saudi-scholarship-english-language-funding/