Policy as soft deterrence: Impact of recent policy changes on international students in Australia

Since 2021, Australia’s international education and migration policies have undergone significant changes. However, a critical gap remains in understanding how these policy shifts are experienced, interpreted, and evaluated by international students themselves. Drawing on in-depth interviews with Chinese, Indian and Vietnamese international students, this article examines how these cohorts make sense of and navigate the evolving landscape of Australia’s international education policies. It unpacks their experiences of administrative delays, visa insecurity and escalating visa fees, constrained employment opportunities, and emotional uncertainty, and shows how these vary across national backgrounds. By centring student voices, the analysis moves beyond official policy rhetoric to explore how international education and migration governance is lived, evaluated, and internalised in students’ everyday life. In doing so, the article contributes to a deeper understanding of how seemingly technical policy instruments function as technologies of affect, shaping not only international education and migration outcomes but also students’ sense of belonging, self-worth, and future possibilities. Particularly, this article offers an original conceptual framework by introducing three new concepts to the international education literature: ‘temporal bordering’, ‘aspirational compromise’, and ‘affective governance in international education’ to illuminate how international education-migration policies shape international students’ experiences, aspirations, emotions, and sense of belonging. It reconceptualises international education governance as relational and affective, moving beyond macro-level policy analysis to highlight the affective dimensions of students’ experiences with shifting geopolitical and policy contexts.