Victoria joins the other states and territories (ex NSW) as well as a bunch of universities in creating relief funding for international students whose jobs are gone and in cases can’t go home.

The $45m from Spring Street is way better than the nothing which the feds are providing, but without Commonwealth assistance, the Vic cash will likely last to tomorrow lunchtime. Deakin U has already had 12 500 applications from internationals for support from its $25m emergency fund.

Unless the feds step-up, warns the Australian Business Deans Council, “we stand to lose tens of thousands of students who will rightly feel let down by a country that has been all too ready to take their money but has shown no willingness to help them in their time of need.”

The deans should know, the ABDC says its members “graduate more than half the country’s international university students.”