COVID-19 curbs Australia's foreign student industry

International students in Australia are at a fork in the road with the pandemic causing classes to move online, students like Zhang Yun are making the difficult decision to move back to China:

"It's a little bit frustrating not participating in real life class. You can't really talk with the professor or meet new friends."

Stories like Zhang's are a bad omen for Australia's economy - where foreign students are big business.

Zhang's boyfriend Gu Junming says he misses the face-to-face participation and is moving back too.

"The cost of living here is pretty high, comparing it to China. Like the cost of rent, the cost of goods. Also, the third reason is that if I decide to go back to China, I can do the online courses. At the same time do the internship."

The pace of new enrolments of international students have already dropped drastically.

Catriona Jackson, CEO of Universities Australia explains:

"In the recent, or six months now almost, they haven't been able to get here. That means that numbers will inevitably go down. So, we're facing a revenue hit of between $3.1 billion and $4.8 billion, this year alone and over the next four years, $16 billion."

With China as Australia's top market new enrollments of international students grew 9 percent last year, and 11 the year before that.

So far data on just how many international students have already left this year isn't available.

But the financial blow on major institutions is already being felt, as the University of NSW earlier this month announced it would cut hundreds of jobs and combine three faculties. Monash University in Melbourne said it will be forced to cut more than 200 employees.

And there have also been ripple effects on student housing providers.

Student accommodation provider Savills told Reuters their occupancy levels fell from 95% to 70% in the first semester this year, and that they expect the figure to drop to 50% next semester.