The amendment reverses the government’s decision to reduce the minimum age for all graduate visa streams from 50 to 35 years old – except for Hong Kong and British overseas passport holders – announced as part of its migration review in December 2023.
“Good news amid turbulent time,” Ly Tran professor at Deakin University wrote on LinkedIn.
“The government does listen in this regard! We have advocated for international graduates and argued against this proposed policy on max age cap reduction.”
The policy reversal is a rare piece of good news for Australia’s international education sector, after the government announced amendments to the ESOS Act earlier in May including a plan for a “soft cap” on international students and greater restrictions on agents.
The initial migration strategy published in December said that lowering the age limit would bolster “early career professionals”, but critics warned that the cut off would have excluded most doctoral graduates.
According to the Group of Eight, in 2022, 40% of international PhD students in Australia were aged 30 or older, making many of them ineligible for a visa by the time they had their PhD conferred under the proposed legislation.
Reducing the age limit would also have unequal impacts on different students and courses, such as mature-age mothers, Tran added.
The government does listen in this regard! We have advocated for international graduates and argued against this proposed policy on max age cap reduction.
Ly Tran
The 35-year-old age limit still applies to graduates of taught masters, bachelors, associate degree and vocational programs, which will come into force on July 1, 2024.
As previously reported, the following post-study work rights have been confirmed by the government:
- 2 years for Bachelor Degree (no change)
- 2 years Masters by coursework (reduced from 3 years)
- 3 years for Masters by research (no change)
- 3 years for PhD (reduced from 4 years)
The eligibility for a second temporary graduate visa will remain unchanged, but the two-year extension introduced in 2022 will cease.
Additional changes include the renaming of various streams; the post-study and second post study work streams will become the post-higher and second post-higher education work streams, and the graduate work stream will be renamed as the post-vocational education work stream.