Australia Increased Its Enrolment Cap to 295000 International Students for 2025-2026

Australia uses a system called the National Planning Level, or NPL, to distribute new student spots. The NPL seeks to regulate thenumber of new students entering Australia, but it is not a strict cap. Therevised NPL will allow for 295,000 new spots for international students for2025-2026, which is 25,000 more than the 270,000 cap for 2024–2025. ThisAustralian administration is still dedicated to promoting sustainablegrowth and prudently controlling the size and composition of the onshorestudent market, particularly to accommodate more Southeast Asianstudents, and where new housing is available. They want students to thinkof Australia as a top-tier place to study where they can get excellent educationand have a wonderful time.

Application for a visa will be processed for a particular school as much as eighty percent of the typical cap allocation provided in the NPL under Ministerial Direction 111 (MD111) from the previous year. When that80% threshold is exceeded, the same institution will be placed at the back of the processing line, and colleges or universities that have not met the 80%mark are to receive more priority. K–12 students, students enrolled in independent English immersion classes, pupils from the Pacific and Timor-Leste, educational research students with government financial aid, and some students who start their studies abroad before moving to Australia are among the student groups that are immune from the NPL limits.

Approximately the same amount will be distributed across the vocational and higher education sectors in 2025–2026, with both public as well as private colleges and universities utilizing 196,750 new student spots. Vocational training institutions will share the remaining 98,250 NPL spots. According to the Department of Education's institutional limits, the total number of NPL spaces at public universities will increase by as much as 9%.For-profit private universities, on the other hand, will only be allowed to rise by 3%.

In order to have their NPL limits raised, public universities and private non-profits must show that they are meeting two government priorities: greater interaction with Southeast Asia (in keeping with Australia's 2040 regional strategy) and the supply of reasonably priced and secure student housing. This year's other significant modification to the NPL model is that international students who transfer from associated pathways service providers or TAFE institutes to state-funded universities after completing their secondary education in Australia will not be subject to the National Planning Level. Lastly, the government has stated that a new directive reflecting the updated NPL allocations for 2025–2026 will shortly replaceMD111.

Against a sector-wide NPL cap of 176,000, approximately170,000 visas were issued to new students arriving in Australia for postsecondary education. The VET (vocational education and training) industry, which witnessed only 11,572 permits granted out of a 94,000 NPL reservation, is where the true disparity can be found.

Just 8,887 visas were granted to new VET students in2024–2025 compared to the total number of visas granted to primary applicants. This contrasts with the before the outbreak number of 25,727 in 2018–19 and the most recent year peak of 38,415 in 2022–2023. Enrollments in independent ELICOS have also been negatively impacted. Compared to the 60,299 visas awarded to language students in 2022–2023, the 15,020 visas awarded to new ELICOS learners last year represent a substantial drop.