The International Student Blog

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.

As we reported in our January issue of the International Student News, there has been a recent spate of attacks against international students in Australia, and most notably on students who are studying there from India. The problems have been grumbling for a while and came to a head earlier this month when accounting graduate Nitin Garg, 21, originally from the state of Punjab in northern India, was stabbed to death on January 2nd when on his way to a job at a fast food outlet in Melbourne.

There has been a lot of outcry from both academics in Australia and India, claiming that the Australia government has been doing too little with regards to the matter. Melbourne University professor Simon Marginson, delivering a keynote address to the World Universities Forum in Davos, said “The Australian government is in denial. Racist targeting is involved (in the attacks). Indian students do have a special problem. And there isn’t enough official and civil concern about international student security in Australia.”

The international student industry in Australia is one of the largest in the world with revenues expected to be in excess of $15 billion a year. The government has been heavily criticized for sticking their heads in the sand, denying there is a problem and only providing only modest security enhancements for know trouble spots.

Are you an international student in Australia – or planning to attend school in Australia? Post your comments and thoughts below:

New regulations are being introduced that will allow all students who are issued with visas on, or after the 26th April 2008 to automatically have work authorization. In the past all student visas that were issued to students studying in Australia did not have any form of work authorization, and students needed to separately apply for this – however now all student visas will include work authorization.

The actual working rights will not change for students, so students will still be able to work a maximum of 20 hours per week whilst in school, and unlimited hours during scheduled school breaks. However, the new process will greatly simplify the process for many international students.

The cost of the visa application has also changed, whereas previously the cost of the visa was $430 AUD and $60 AUD for the work authorization, this has now been change to one fee of $450 AUD

For more information about the changes, please see the Department of Immigration and Citizenship website

If you would also like to learn more about Studying in Australia, please see the Australia section of InternationalStudent.com for information about courses, preparing for Australia and much more.