Over the past six years Australia has had rapid success in recruiting students from Latin America, with enrolment increasing from 7,000 to 34,000 since 2004.

Academics and recruiters have attributed this success to the reduced visa constraints and aggressive outreach. Others have suggested that the unpopularity of the previous Bush administration has encouraged students to look outside of the US for their higher education.

The majority of the students studying are enrolled on English language courses at private vocational colleges. However Australian universities are now working on recruiting those students into their undergraduate and postgraduate degree courses.

Sandra Meiras, director of the office of the deputy vice chancellor for international services at the University of Sydney says that “Latin American students provide good classroom diversity and are good-quality students who make an easy transition to Australian life.”

The first major step in recruitment in Latin America began when Australia Education International, a government body that promoted higher education overseas at the time, opened its first ever office in that region.  (Responsibility for recruiting international students has since been taken over by The Australian Trade Commission).

Ms Meiras said that to expand the flow of Latin American students into the country, many Australian institutions rely on fairs, agents and academic partnerships.

Former counselor for Australia Education International in South America, Tony Crooks says that they are turning things around “by holding massive exhibitions inviting students to take a look at what we (have to) offer and also to make it easier to get visas to travel to Australia to study.” A good example of the success of these campaigns was in 2005 when an exhibition in Chile was hosted for an expected 1,000 students, and over 10,000 attended.

With fierce competition from other countries, that are able to offer more scholarships and assistantships to students, Australian institutions are encouraging students to enter “Pathway Programs”.  These programmes allow students to work on their language skills whilst studying a university course.

For more information on studying in Australia, keep a lookout for the upcoming i-studentadvisor Australia magazine, due for publication in early September.