High student visa refusal rates and extreme fee increases are blunt, haphazard tools for cutting net migration. Australia needs a long-term migration plan it can explain and defend.

Education Minister Jason Clare has announced that the National Planning Level (NPL) for new overseas student commencements for the higher education and VET sectors is to be retained at 295,000 for 2027. At the same time, he says “current tracking indicates international student commencements are on track to be below the NPL for both 2026 and 2027”. He says commencements are trending at 8 per cent below the NPL.

What is the point of an NPL the government has no intention of delivering? This has not been explained.

The Group of Eight (Go8) lobby group has issued a media release welcoming the government’s decision not to reduce the NPL. The release says nothing about the Government’s intention not to deliver the NPL. That is most likely because Go8 universities will meet their respective NPL allocations, particularly as these universities have an over-reliance on students from China. It is lower-tier universities and VET providers that will not meet their allocations.

When the 2026 NPL was announced in mid-2025, the government was........

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