(Bloomberg) -- Australia will limit visa approvals for foreign students from next year as part of a migration crackdown.

Most Read from Bloomberg

• Nazi Bunker’s Leafy Makeover Turns Ugly Past Into Urban Eyecatcher

• Sydney Central Train Station Is Now an Architectural Destination

• Chicago Overcomes DNC Skeptics With Calm, Parties and Sun

• How the Cortiços of São Paulo Helped Shelter South America’s Largest City

• With Housing Costs High, Democrats Hone YIMBY Message

Under the policy, the government will cap new international students at 175,000 for higher education courses and 95,000 for the skills training sector, taking the total to 270,000, Education Minister Jason Clare said Tuesday.

Overall, there will be about 15% more students allowed for universities and 20% fewer for vocational colleges in 2025, Clare said. The government was writing to individual universities to inform them of their caps on Tuesday.

That limit on higher education visas implied a 13% cut from the fiscal year that ended in June, much lower than the 20-25% decline forecast previously by student services provider IDP Education Ltd., said Entcho Raykovski, analyst at Evans & Partners Pty Ltd. IDP shares jumped as much as 14% in Sydney, to the highest level in more than three months.

Ratings agency Moody’s Ratings said the impact on Australian public universities from the announcement was likely to be “modest.”

“This is an important part of our economy, no doubt about it. That hasn’t changed,” Clare told reporters in Sydney. “It is about making sure that we set it up in a sustainable way for the future. We want students to come and study here.”

University representative bodies continued to oppose the limits. Universities Australia Chair David Lloyd said in a statement that the caps would put a “handbrake” on the tertiary education sector. International students contributed A$48 billion ($32.5 billion) to the Australian economy in 2023, making it the country’s top services export.

Migration controls should not be imposed “at the expense of any one sector, particularly one as economically important as education,” Lloyd added, saying the limits would cause damage to Australia’s research and development capacity.

There had been no economic modeling on the impact of the decision, said Vicki Thomson, chief executive of the Group of Eight Universities, which represents the country’s biggest research universities. “The unexplained number gives us no comfort,” she said, in an emailed statement.

The Independent Tertiary Education Council Australia said in a statement that universities don’t yet have enough information to make decisions.

Australia is just the latest country to crack down on international students over migration concerns, with Canada, the Netherlands and the UK all implementing or considering measures targeting the university sector.

In Australia, the government has been consulting for months over plans to impose limits on foreign students, part of a broader push to crack down on high post-Covid migration numbers. The surge in migration has coincided with rising voter concerns about a housing squeeze that sent rents soaring, proving politically damaging for the center-left Labor government.

Support for migration in Australia has fallen to its lowest level in five years, according to a poll released by Essential on Tuesday, with 42% of those surveyed saying it had a negative effect on the country.

--With assistance from Georgina McKay.

(Updates throughout, adds IDP shares, comments from analyst, Moody’s, Go8.)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

• Far-Right ‘Terrorgram’ Chatrooms Are Fueling a Wave of Power Grid Attacks

• Hong Kong’s Old Airport Becomes Symbol of City’s Property Pain

• Losing Your Job Used to Be Shameful. Now It’s a Whole Identity

• FOMO Frenzy Fuels Taiwan Home Prices Despite Threat of China Invasion

• Fox News Embraces a Different Kind of Guest: Democrats

©2024 Bloomberg L.P.