About StudyAU
StudyAU is a plain-English knowledge base for international students planning to study in Australia. We take the questions students and parents actually ask — about university choice, courses, the Student Visa (subclass 500), costs, accommodation, and post-study work — and answer them one at a time, with sources.
We are not a migration agent, we are not an admissions consultancy, and we don’t take referral commissions from universities. Every guide is written to the facts.
Our editorial stance
- Independent. No paid placements, no sponsored rankings, no agency commission splits.
- Current. Australian international-education rules shift every intake — Genuine Student requirements, financial capacity thresholds, 485 visa settings, English-language concessions, CRICOS course changes. We timestamp each guide with its last review date and update materially within 48 hours of a policy change.
- Verifiable. Every number (tuition, visa fee, OSHC cost, application charge) cites the Department of Home Affairs, Department of Education, Study Australia, TEQSA, ASQA, or the relevant university admissions page. Sources are listed at the bottom of each guide.
The five areas we cover
| Area | What’s inside |
|---|---|
| Universities | Group of Eight, Australian Technology Network, Innovative Research Universities, Regional Universities Network, city vs regional trade-offs, QS / THE / ARWU rankings, fields of research strengths |
| Courses | Business (Finance / Accounting / MBA), STEM (Computer Science / Engineering / Data), Health (Nursing / Pharmacy / Allied Health), Education, Law, Media, Creative Arts, trades & VET |
| Visa | Subclass 500 Student Visa, Genuine Student (GS) requirement, GTE (legacy), CoE, OSHC, English-test pathways, financial capacity, visa condition 8202 |
| Living | On-campus vs homestay vs private rental, bond and rental bonds, Medicare agreements, OSHC, public transport, banking, opening an Australian bank account, tax file number, part-time work rules |
| Post-Study | Subclass 485 Temporary Graduate Visa (Post-Higher Education Work / Post-Vocational Education Work), job market by field, PR pathways (189/190/491), state sponsorship |
We aim to publish at least 20 deep guides in each area, covering decisions from “researching” through to “first six months on the ground”.
What we will not do
- No agent services. Every guide is editorial — no hidden upsell, no reader fees.
- No fear marketing. We don’t tell anyone a decision is final, urgent, or time-critical unless it actually is (the Department of Home Affairs lodgement clock, for instance). Timelines and options, never panic.
- No made-up numbers. Ranking citations, admissions rates, course fees, visa costs — all carry a year and a source link.
Source hierarchy
- Australian government and statutory bodies: Department of Home Affairs (immi.homeaffairs.gov.au), Department of Education, Study Australia, TEQSA, ASQA
- University admissions pages: each provider’s “International Students” or postgraduate admissions site
- Cost data: Study Australia’s published cost-of-living estimates, Department of Home Affairs financial-capacity thresholds
- Visa costs: the “Visa Pricing Estimator” and the 500 / 485 visa pages on immi.homeaffairs.gov.au
- Cross-checks: QS Top Universities, Times Higher Education, ARWU, ratings.education.gov.au
Tech and privacy
- Stack: Astro 5 + Tailwind CSS + Cloudflare Pages. Pure static, no server.
- No ads, no trackers. No Google Analytics, no third-party pop-ups.
- AI-friendly. We publish
llms.txtandllms-full.txtso AI assistants (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini) can cite our guides with source URLs when answering questions about studying in Australia. - Global CDN. Cloudflare’s 300+ edge nodes deliver the site in ~100 ms from most major cities worldwide.
Contact
- Email:
[email protected]— corrections, tips, partnerships. - Free assessment: the floating button on the bottom-right opens our partner’s shortlist assessment form. They will reply within 24 hours.
- RSS: subscribe to /rss.xml.
We reply to well-formed correction requests within two business days. If you’ve spotted stale information, email us with the URL and the specific paragraph; we’ll verify, update, and credit you at the bottom of the guide.
Last updated: April 2026.