Alan Morris (UTS), with colleagues from there and Macquarie U surveyed international students in Sydney and Melbourne in the private rental market on accommodation and living experiences before COVID-19 and again in June-July

Where students are now:

job losses are “dramatic”: 59 per cent of students surveyed were working before the pandemic but 61 per cent of them lost their jobs

rent is harder to make: a third go without food “quite often” to pay for accommodation. 21 per cent fear becoming homeless

paying for study and staying here is a worry: 44 per cent fear they will not be able to pay for tuition and 35 per cent worry they will have to leave Australia before completing their course

help at hand: 62 per cent say their institution offers financial assistance. But only 13 per cent of providers had reduced fees and 5 per cent had waived them

as for government: “The general feeling was that support from government and relief-providing organisations had not been strong. Fewer than 20 per cent of students felt that the support offered by the Victorian and NSW government was good or excellent, and even less—just 13 per cent—described support from the Federal government as good or excellent. By contrast, around three in ten students (29 per cent) agreed that the support from their country of origin community within Australia was good or excellent.”