A recent report has revealed that racial attacks on international students, especially Indians made Australia cost more than US dollars of 400 million. The loss is also propelled by the Australian government’s decision to shut down several privately owned education institutions in the nation, as well as the high value of Australian currency.

There has been a drop of up to twenty percent in the number of visas applied for higher education in Australia. According to reports, the number of study visas was down about 14,422 during the first 9 months of this financial year until March of 2010, from the figures of the same period a year ago. This marked a twenty percent drop from 69,827 to 55,405.

Many think that even though the steps taken by the Australian government to fulfill the country’s long-term goals seem logical, but there should be some changes for sake of the country’s benefits. The net result is that new government policies are causing abandonment of the international students to Australia.

There are also reports that the country’s education authorities are in disagreement with the immigration department, reason being the former did not want such tougher stance, in terms of the new amendments to the immigration policies. They rather wanted a softer stance which could have helped the troubled education industry to recover. The education industry in Australia has widely criticized the immigration department for its new amendments.

For any information on Australian immigration, contact an Immigration and Visa consultant!