12 November 2009

Study in Australia an attractive prospect for international students

Indian students comprise the second largest group, after China, of international students who study in Australia for tertiary qualifications, and these numbers have been growing at an estimated 38 per cent every year since 1999.

Study in Australia has been increasingly preferred over the UK and the US, recent survey have shown.

The recently published Global Education Digest 2009, compiled by Unesco, shows that for Indian students, the US is no longer the favourite destination. 

Before 1999 over 71 per cent of Indian students headed for the US, while a small proportion went to the UK (8 per cent) and Australia (7.6 per cent). But from 1999 to 2009 (the ten-year Unesco study period), the absolute number of Indian students has tripled while the proportion of students going to the US has declined to 56 per cent. More Indian students are now going to Australia, Germany, New Zealand and the UK.

For example, from 2004 to 2009, the number of Indians with an Australian Student Visa shot up from 30,000 to 97,000. Most, around 45,000 live in Melbourne, 32,000 in Adelaide and the rest in Sydney, Brisbane and Perth.

What makes Australia an attractive destination for study is cost, as it costs much less to obtain higher education in Australia compared with the UK or the US.

A Bachelors degree in Australia costs between AU$10,000-16,500 a year, a graduate diploma costs A$9,000-16,000 a year, and a Masters AU$11,000-18,500 a year.

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 The Australian Visa Bureau is an independent consulting company specialising in helping people with Australian visas.