The International Student Blog

The number of foreign students studying in New Zealand has risen for the first time in six years, making a turnaround for the countries international student population. Figure released by Education New Zealand shows 93,500 foreign students studied in the country last year, compared to 88,470 in the previous year.

Education New Zealand chief executive Robert Stevens commented that people tended to stay in education longer or enter tertiary education from the labour market in tough economic times, plus the organisation’s target group, those in the high-income bracket, were still able to afford to study overseas, he said.

Education providers have also carried more intense marketing and promotion in countries such as China, India, Vietnam, Thailand, South Korea, Malaysia, North America, Brazil and Germany over the previous 12 months which is also a major factor in the increased numbers.

For more information about Studying in New Zealand, please visit:

http://www.newzealandeducated.com/

and please click here to read the full article in detail.

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Thousands of Indian students are struggling to get their prepaid tuition refunded from Australian schools and colleges. The situation has come to light following the collapse of colleges and a clamp down of the Australian immigration system. As we reported earlier this year, there were a number of high profile attacks on Indian students in Australia which had led to a number of college closures and a clampdown of the visa process for students coming into Australia. This all led to the denial of visas for thousands of students, many of whom had already prepaid their tuition in advance.

The exact extent of the problem is not fully know, as the Australian government has refused to disclose the amount of prepaid tuition that students are seeking reimbursement for – however international education experts are predicting the amount of tuition that students prepaid could run into the millions of Australian dollars.

Ravi Lochan Singh, the managing director of Global Reach, an education agency that represents Australian universities and colleges in India, said “There is an issue here; I think that with more and more private colleges going down the issue will increase”. Under Australian law course fees must be refunded within 28 days, but Mr Singh said the question of whether students’ prepaid college fees were protected by the ESOS Assurance Fund was still a “grey area”.

If you are an international student who is waiting for their tuition back, post your comments below. You can also read the full article here.