Impact of international student caps on dentistry

If the proposed cap to international students passes the Senate in September, there will be widespread ramifications across the higher education sector. What about the implications for dentistry?

Earlier this year the Government announced a new plan to cap the number of international students at Australian universities. It followed a spike in international students from 580,000 pre-pandemic to 700,000 this year and came amidst calls to reduce net annual migration to relieve pressure on housing. Setting aside the argument about whether international students are really a significant factor in housing affordability (hint: they aren’t), it’s worth looking at what impact these changes might have on the dental profession.

Currently around one third of dentistry students studying in Australia are international students. In 2022 there were 395 domestic and 217 international students in the final year of a entry-to-practice dentistry degree (not including the 52 students at the University of Western Australia where the split was unknown). There was slightly fewer international students enrolled in first year in 2022 (193) and more domestic students (453). Generally the sandstone universities had a higher proportion of international students enrolled in the final year of their degree – University of Adelaide (56%), University of Sydney (55%), University of Queensland (51%) and University of Melbourne (39%). However the newer dental schools still had significant numbers – Griffith University (20%), Charles Sturt University (20%), La Trobe University (19%) and James Cook University (14%). Conversely, there are very few international students studying oral health therapy – only 9 (3%) in final year and 23 (5%) in first year in 2022.

The proposed legislative change would cap international student enrolments at 40% - either at the institution level or perhaps even at a course level. Up to 10 universities currently have overall enrolments above this threshold, including the Universities of Sydney, Melbourne and Queensland. It has been estimated that this new legislation would require the University of Sydney to shed 12,150 international enrolments, and the University of Melbourne 7,725. Universities Australia has suggested that up to 14,000 education jobs would also be at risk – as well as an impact on the broader economy.

The concern for the dental profession is what might happen if dental schools are required to reduce international enrolments as part of the overall cap. One issue is whether budgetary cuts leading to jobs losses would impact on dental school - which are already suffering issues with academic staff recruitment and retention.

The second issue is how dental schools will manage overall enrolments. The most likely scenario is that they will make up for any shortfall with domestic enrolments. Given the continuing high demand for dentistry places, this would not be a difficult task.

Although the numbers are likely to be small, the overall impact would be a net growth in the number of graduating dentists in the near future. Some in the profession might view that with alarm - after-all there have been many arguing that we have an over-supply of dentists over many years. However there is still a persistent and significant maldistribution of the dental workforce both geographically and by sector, suggesting that we are not yet approaching market saturation.

Perhaps of greater concern is the likelihood that more of these dentists will be graduating with increasing debt – because the substitution of domestic for international students is likely to be in the full-feeing paying category rather than in Commonwealth Supported Places. Given that dentistry course fees will be up to $85,000 next year, it is becoming less likely that these graduates would work in those areas of need – particularly in the public sector where remuneration is considerably lower than in the private sector.

The Senate is expected to debate the legislation in early September.