The international student experience in 2026 is shaped by a distinct set of pressures, some global, others distinctly Australian:
- Student visas as instruments of immigration control;
- Rising costs of living;
- Housing vulnerability;
- Employment exploitation;
- Growing awareness of gender-based violence;
- Uncertainty about future employment and career pathways; and
- Persistent segregation from Australian students.
Taken together, these experiences don’t just create challenges; their combined weight also impacts mental health and wellbeing. Mental health is arguably the defining challenge for international students; not another item in the list above, but rather, the sum of it.
This article explores these pressures and offers a framework for rethinking the design and support of the international student experience.
Visas, racism and belonging
Student visas are increasingly used to control temporary migration in Australia, not just through spiralling visa costs and tightening thresholds, but through the messages these settings about who belongs in Australia and who does not. Those messages land on international students. Layered onto broader anti-migration rhetoric and, at times, racialised narratives, this erodes international students’ sense of belonging, shaping how students see themselves and how they believe others see them.
Study is often described as a time and space of becoming; where young people discover who they are and what is possible. When dominant messages signal exclusion, international students are positioned as the ‘other’ and their process of becoming is disrupted. This makes it more difficult for international students to feel confident, find community, be authentic or simply belong; and weighs directly on mental health.
Housing and employment exploitation and stress
Housing is not just about where international students live; it’s a social determinant of health that directly shapes how they feel, study and experience security and wellbeing. The cost of living in Australia is high and for international students arriving in a new country struggling to meet basic needs, it can be destabilising.
Securing accommodation is difficult for anyone, especially new arrivals without rental history or local networks. International students are often pushed to the margins of the housing market, into over-crowded or poor-quality accommodation with limited tenant protections. Recent research has found many live in precarious accommodation, including well-informed students, because the system itself produces risk. Australian research has found that international students’ anxiety about academic outcomes is heightened by worries over rent, the hours of work needed to afford it, fear of eviction and the condition and location of housing. International students have been blamed for Australia’s housing crisis, despite evidence to the contrary. In reality, they are among the most vulnerable in the system.
Financial pressure pushes some international students into employment which, while often positive, can also be exploitative. Research shows widespread wage theft and exploitation affecting international students, particularly in the gig economy. Surveying 8,000 international students, the Migrant Justice Institute found they are underpaid by up to $3.18 billion annually, a pattern the NSW Anti-slavery Commissioner described as ‘systematic and structured’ and ‘not incidental or isolated’. The layered effect of financial stress, housing insecurity and workplace vulnerability fuels poor mental health outcomes.
Gender-based violence
Our sector is sharpening our focus on preventing and responding to gender-based violence. The National Higher Education Code to Prevent and Respond to Gender Based Violence (2025) requires institutions to prevent sexual assault and harassment (SEAH); respond safely; support victim-survivors and act across campus and student accommodation. International students experience sexual harm through added layers of culture, language, age and migration status. This impacts how they identify SEAH incidents; navigate disclosures and complaints; and access support.
The specific experiences of international students related to sexual harm demand our full attention. We must ensure physical and cultural safety to all who report these experiences and systems must be accessible and trustworthy. When these conditions aren’t met, the effects on mental health can be profound. Actively listening, researching and responding to these intersecting experiences of international students is vital as we strengthen our work here.
Employment and the future
Student concerns about future employment are rising, regardless of whether they plan to return home post-study or stay in Australia. This uncertainty is often lived as anxiety by international students who are simultaneously navigating study, finances and future plans.
Many institutions invest in excellent employability programs that deserve recognition. But we must keep asking: what’s meaningful and impactful; who is being engaged and who is missing; and why are some students not participating? Future employability is a primary driver for international students and that anxiety weighs on well-being.
Connection to Australians
Research consistently shows that while international and domestic students study side by side, they often live socially separate lives. International students want to make Australian connections yet report difficulty forming meaningful friendships with domestic peers and communities due to structural barriers. Language, time pressures, cultural difference and the fact that most Australian students already have established networks all contribute to limitations for meaningful connections, both in schools and tertiary education.
The result is persistent segregation, not always intentional but often the default outcome of current systems. This matters because connection isn’t just social, it’s foundational to wellbeing. International students who lack meaningful relationships are more likely to experience loneliness, isolation and poor mental health. Those who have other international friends also reflect on an unrealised hope of connecting with Australians in a meaningful way.
A generation shaped by disruption
Overlay these pressures with another factor: today’s students are a cohort shaped by COVID-19, which struck during their adolescence, a critical developmental period spent physically isolated from peers, often in severe lock-down, living with fear and uncertainty. These young people missed key opportunities to practise and build relationships, navigate conflict and explore their identities. Now, they arrive in a new country, expected to do all of this and more.
A framework for action: Three S’s
I don’t raise these issues to paint a bleak picture. Our sector does extraordinary work, but responding meaningfully means thinking beyond isolated interventions. I want to offer three interconnected tools: storytelling, systems and student co-design.
- Storytelling: The pressures described above are shaped by stories; the stories we tell about international students; the stories policy tells about migration; and the stories international students are able, or unable, to tell about themselves.
When those stories are limiting or harmful, we must actively counter them by telling stories that reinforce belonging and creating platforms for students to share their own experiences. I encourage you to learn from powerful ‘counter-storytelling’, where those who are marginalised challenge dominant narratives by telling their own. This matters deeply because storytelling isn’t just a form of expression; it represents power, identity, belonging and agency.
We need to ask: whose stories are being told, who gets to tell them and who is listening? Creating space for international students to share their stories and ensuring those stories are heard isn’t a ‘nice to have’, it’s fundamental to wellbeing.
- Systems: The pressures above don't exist in isolation; they exist within systems. We must be willing to examine and reshape those systems, to innovate and to ask: what would this look like if designed differently? We must design with purpose for international students, leaning into inclusive education and universal design for learning (UDL) principles. UDL means designing education from the start, to work for everyone, rather than adapting it later for some. This moves use from 'how do we support students who struggle?' to 'how do we design learning so fewer students struggle in the first place?’. The key is removing barriers present across whole systems, not those which are tied to a particular student. UDL principles can reduce unnecessary complexity and make environments more accessible.
Students process information differently, shaped by culture, language and experience; opportunities should also be presented in culturally and linguistically responsive formats. Sally Kift's transition pedagogy enriches this, emphasising continuous, embedded support and engagement over 'point-in-time' interventions.
- Student co-design: International students are not a one-dimensional, homogenous group. They hold intersecting and evolving identities, which may also include as women, as LGBTIQA+ individuals, as students with disability and as first-generation learners. We cannot design for them as an abstract group; we must design with them. When we co-design with international students, something changes. Our strategies become grounded in real experience, our systems more responsive to actual need and our outcomes more meaningful. Co-design is distinct from consultation or feedback; it’s a partnership in which students have agency. If we're serious about improving mental health and wellbeing, students cannot sit at the edge of solutions; they must be at the centre.
If we want to improve outcomes for international students, particularly mental health and wellbeing, we must address the conditions that create them. We can do this through an approach which combines storytelling, systems and student co-design. Together, these offer us a way forward.