Marketing with Integrity: Attracting Students while Staying Compliant

Compliance Overhaul

Australia's international education sector, a $48 billion industry in 2025, is undergoing seismic shifts to restore integrity after years of exploitation. The Education Services for Overseas Students (ESOS) Act amendments, passed in November 2025, sharpen definitions of education agents—now including any non-employee involved in recruitment—and agent commissions, encompassing all benefits tied to student enrolments. This sets the stage for stricter oversight, with the National Code updated in January 2026 to prohibit commissions for recruiting students already onshore who switch providers before completing their initial course.

The ban, effective from April 1, 2026, targets 'poaching' practices where agents lure students with incentives, often leading to non-genuine enrolments. Providers can honor existing contracts until March 31, 2026, but after that, violations trigger automatic regulatory action. This follows a surge in visa refusals and closures of over 150 'ghost colleges' in 2025, institutions existing mainly for migration loopholes rather than education.

Real-world impacts hit Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) hardest, many reliant on international fees for survival. Non-compliance can lead to Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) sanctions, including fines up to $2.1 million per breach under Australian Consumer Law for misleading marketing. In 2025, ASQA audited 67% of South Australian real estate RTOs, finding widespread failures in agent monitoring and deceptive promotions, resulting in suspensions that displaced thousands of students and cost providers millions in lost revenue.

Students, particularly from India and China—comprising 40% of intakes—gain protections against false promises of migration outcomes, but face fewer transfer options amid a 295,000 cap on New Overseas Student Commencements (NOSCs) for 2026, up from 270,000 but still constraining growth. Agents, meanwhile, see business models upended, with onshore commissions—a key income stream—evaporated, potentially driving some to riskier offshore tactics.

Non-obvious tensions emerge in stakeholder alignments: universities, allocated over half of NOSCs, push for diversification beyond high-ratio international cohorts, while smaller RTOs argue caps exacerbate inequality, favoring elites. Surprising data from 2025 shows no direct link between student numbers and housing crises, yet policies persist, blending migration control with quality assurance. Trade-offs include heightened scrutiny on marketing—banning guarantees of jobs or visas—versus the need to compete globally, where Australia's visa fees, hiked to $1,600 in 2025, already deter applicants compared to Canada or the UK.