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South Asian students hailing from countries such as India, Nepal and Pakistan now face a greater challenge to get an Australian student visa as there is an increase of the Financial capacity requirement.
Now going to Australia to pursue one’s education has become more difficult for students hailing from nations such as India, Nepal and Pakistan. Marked as ‘high risk’ students from these nations have to now produce greater evidence of funds for visa application.
It means students from these nations now require to show that they have enough funds in hand to bear the expenses of not just studying, but also living in Australia and paying for their travel expenses to and from the mother nation.
What are the minimum amounts under each category?
The annual expense has been marked as $21,041 by the Home Affairs Department. This is exclusive of the course fee for which the student seeks to apply for the Visa. This is, in fact, the primary criteria now for applying for the student’s visa.
Further, for the students who have spouses or de facto partners, a piece of additional evidence needs to be produced of another $7,362. Those who are accompanied by a dependent child, $3152 has been set as the required sum. However, this sum changes for school going children who require additional costs adding to a sum of $ 8296.
As pointed by Melbourne migration agent Ranbir Singh, “ Either these funds can be shown in the form of genuine saving or even fixed deposits. However, evidence may also be given in the form that the parents have enough annual income to support the student visa applicant”.
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However, in case the parents or spouse of an applicant fails to show the evidence of the required fund, the amount of minimum annual income has also been revised to $62,000 for a single applicant and $72,592 in cases where there are two applicants.
Down gradation and changes
This increase both in the living expenses as well the evidence of annual income has come in line with the consumer price index. This risk assessment level was downgraded from level 3 to level 2 for the students of these nations by the Department of Home Affairs in September this year. Now students from India, Pakistan and Nepal who are applying for courses by education providers except in the institutes of excellent repute have to provide such financial evidence apart from also giving proof of their proficiency in English
Migration agent assessment
As assessed by the migration agents as these changes have come following the down gradation in the assessment level, it will definitely have an adverse effect on the number of students who come from these nations.
One of the leading migration agents, Jujhar Bajwa opines, “The requirement to show English language proficiency is an additional burden on the students who already have to give fund evidences. Further, the required amount of fund has also been increased. All of it is definitely going to reflect upon the number of students coming to Australia from these nations”
It is worthy to note here that the multi-billion dollar Australian education industry gets its third-biggest source of international students from Nepal and China.
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However, with these changes, it is likely that students will now prefer nations such as Canada and Uk.
