These factors have had the effect of slowing or declining international student enrolments, with prospects of worse to come. The effects of policy‐induced changes to student visas and skilled migration, the most important of which came into effect only quite recently, are likely to be only seen in the coming months. Higher education was the prime initiator of the international student export success and remains the most economically significant part of the whole sector. While recent changes to student visas and skilled migration are targeted primarily at other parts of the sector (. private colleges), there is a real prospect that higher education institutions will also be negatively affected, both in the short and long term – and that this could in turn adversely impact on the Australian economy. .
