In August, the Australian government announced that, pending approval of proposed legislative amendments, a cap on new international student commencements will go into effect in January 2025. The cap – formally, the National Planning Level (NPL) – will apply to the higher education and vocational education (VET) sectors, and we’ve just learned how profoundly the cap will be felt by private VET providers. Those institutions accounted for 57% of all international student enrolments in Australia in 2023.

2025 cap allocations for VET

The initial government announcement stated that out of all the new spaces available to international students under the NPL, the VET sector is to receive 95,000, compared with 145,000 for public universities and 30,000 for other universities and non-university providers.
 
On Friday night last week, individual private VET colleges received letters informing them how many spaces they would receive out of that total VET allowance. Many of those providers will be devastated by their allocations. Some have been informed they can receive less than half the number of new students they welcomed in 2023.