“The rhetoric has been that ‘the system’ was to crackdown on the dodgy providers and to reduce ‘exploitation and rorting in higher education’,” Field wrote, “but … it’s just chaos that is impacting genuine students who’ve committed to Australia as their future study destination.”

Macquarie University’s international director David Harrison said genuine international students would suffer an “unjust black mark on their future”. Curtin University’s head of international student recruitment, Mike Ferguson, accused the government of an unsophisticated, “drunken sailor” approach to visa policy.

As the government slashes foreign student arrivals to reduce net overseas migration by 250,000 by July 2025, visa applications are being refused at an unprecedented level – just 80 per cent of applications were approved in the six months to December.

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Group of Eight chief executive Vicki Thomson said the top-tier universities were concerned about significant visa processing delays. “We have raised this issue with the government and are working with them to find a solution,” Thomson said.

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil was asked for comment. Last week, she said the government’s goal of returning migration to pre-pandemic levels was clear, “and applying proper integrity to student visa applications is critical to doing that”.

“Change is hard, and we’ll work with providers to help them navigate the new system,” she said.

Her comments followed a letter endorsed by vice chancellors of 16 universities, including Victoria University, Federation University, Western Sydney University and the University of Wollongong, warning of a $310 million blow to their revenue under the new visa restrictions.

The government has announced a suite of measures, including stricter English language testing and financial requirements for students, and fines of nearly $1 million for fraudulent training providers, to boost the quality of students and stop them using education as a back door for low-paid work.

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Asked in December whether the government would resort to capping student numbers, O’Neil did not rule this out. She said she was “confident that the measures we have put together here are being done quickly and that we’ve caught this problem in time”.

At issue now is the application of O’Neil’s ministerial direction to departmental staff in December to prioritise processing visa applications for institutions with the least risk. Institutions complained delays were being felt across the board.

Global Reach education agency director Ravi Singh said he’d rarely seen non-political entities such as universities coming out so clearly against the government. Students would speak ill of Australia as a study destination because of their experiences in the visa system.

“They won’t just lose a visa fee, they will lose a full year of their life,” he said.