🇮🇩Study in Australia from Indonesia

Apply through the university's international portal or an authorised agent. Direct application is available at most universities for Indonesian citizens, and agents are widely used for the offer, deposit, and visa steps.

Have legalised copies of your ijazah and transcript ready, with certified English translations. Universities may ask for verification through the awarding institution.

Most universities run February and July intakes and assess on a rolling basis. Apply two to three months ahead. Use the universities directory to shortlist and the deadline calendar for the recommended dates.

A first year in Australia costs roughly IDR 508.3 million to 1 billion for a student from Indonesia, converted from A$40,000 to A$80,000 at the rate above. Tuition is the part that moves: the rest (living costs, the visa, health cover) is fixed by the Australian Government and identical for every nationality.

Tuition runs from the low A$30,000s at regional and newer universities to the high A$40,000s and beyond at the Group of Eight. Living costs depend on the city: budget around A$30,000 a year, more in Sydney and Melbourne, less in Adelaide, Perth, and regional centres.

On top of that: the A$2,500 student visa, roughly A$500 to A$700 a year for single Overseas Student Health Cover, flights, and initial setup. See the cost-of-living breakdowns by city and the most affordable universities.

Australia Awards Scholarships have run in Indonesia since 1953, one of the program's longest-standing intakes, funding a Master's or PhD in Australia. Indonesia's own government scholarship agency, LPDP, co-funds a joint LPDP-Australia Awards track for Indonesian applicants. This runs alongside the general international scholarships offered directly by Australian universities (see the scholarships hub).

International students hold the subclass 500 student visa. You apply after you receive and accept an offer and the university issues a Confirmation of Enrolment. You must meet the Genuine Student requirement, which replaced the Genuine Temporary Entrant test in March 2024, and show genuine access to funds.

Indonesia is at student-visa Evidence Level 2, having moved up from Level 1 in early 2026. Home Affairs sets evidence levels from a weighted index across five factors: visa cancellations (25% weighting), refusals for a fraud reason (40%), other refusals (10%), the rate of visa holders becoming unlawful non-citizens (15%), and subsequent protection-visa applications (10%). An index below 1.0 sits at Level 1, an index between 1.0 and 2.7 sits at Level 2, and anything above 2.7 sits at Level 3. Home Affairs' own evidence-levels page sets out this methodology but does not publish a change log or an announcement date for Indonesia's move, and migration-agent reporting in Indonesia that dates the shift to around March 2026 is not independently confirmed by a primary government or news source, so treat early 2026 as the best-supported date range rather than a confirmed one. Either way, Indonesia's index is well short of the 2.7 threshold that put Nepal, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh at Level 3 in a January 2026 review. Be ready to show, upfront, funds for tuition, travel, and 12 months of living costs, a valid English test result, and a Genuine Student statement that case officers will read closely.

Home Affairs' own student visa program report puts Indonesian volumes in context. In the six months to 31 December 2025, Indonesian citizens lodged 6,006 student visa applications (2.9% of the national total, up 4.8% on the same period a year earlier) and were granted 5,697 (3.2% of the total, up 2.2%), making Indonesia the seventh largest source of lodgements and sixth largest by grants. Applications from students already in Australia rose faster than those from offshore: onshore lodgements climbed 30.3% to 2,117, while offshore lodgements eased 5.3% to 3,889. The onshore grant rate for Indonesian applicants was 71.4% in the quarter to December 2025, up from 68.0% the previous quarter and 62.0% a year earlier, but still below the 75.4% all-countries onshore average. The offshore grant rate eased to 88.6%, down from 91.5% the previous quarter, though still above the 83.8% all-countries offshore average. Indonesia was also the tenth largest source of Temporary Graduate (subclass 485) visa lodgements (1,441, up 37.4%) and had 15,593 student visa holders in Australia as at 31 December 2025 (up 5.2%), the ninth largest cohort of any citizenship country.

Where Indonesian applications run into trouble it is usually over source of funds, sponsorship letters without matching bank evidence, or a study plan that does not follow from previous study or work. A documented savings history, or a clear scholarship award letter, addresses most of it.

Indonesia does not have anything like the organised education-agent fraud problems documented in Nepal, Bangladesh, or the Philippines, and there is no documented pattern of fraud specifically targeting applicants for the LPDP scholarship; the one LPDP controversy reported in 2026 involved a scholar sanctioned for breaching a post-study service obligation, not fraud against applicants. The Australian Embassy in Jakarta still runs a "Stay safe from visa scams" page, in English and Indonesian, that lists the warning signs common to Indonesian visa fraud generally: contact through social media or WhatsApp, a guaranteed visa outcome, a demand to hand over your passport, a fee well above the official Department of Home Affairs charge, and the specific false claim that you can work on a Visitor visa or switch it to a Student visa once you are in Australia. It advises using only official government sources and never letting anyone else submit an application on your behalf without checking every detail yourself. The clearest documented Indonesian scam wave in 2025 sat in a different visa stream: ABC News Indonesian reported in November 2025 that touts were charging young Indonesians Rp20 million to Rp60 million (roughly AUD 2,000 to 6,000) for a supposedly guaranteed Work and Holiday visa support letter, a document that is actually free and allocated by lottery, and that more than 3,000 formal complaints had been filed over it. That is not the student visa route, but it is the same guaranteed-outcome-for-a-fee pattern the Embassy's page warns against, and no legitimate education or migration agent can guarantee your Genuine Student assessment.

Full detail on the visa itself, conditions, and family members is on the subclass 500 page.

Most bachelor’s and master’s graduates qualify for a Temporary Graduate visa (subclass 485), which gives two to three years of full work rights. That skilled work is the usual step toward permanent residence through the points-tested visas.

Check where you stand with the points calculator and track demand in the SkillSelect invitation rounds.