The Australian dollar has been increasing in value in recent years and this has made it harder for students considering study there. One university that does well in these tougher times is the University of Tasmania.

With 3,000 international students out of a total of 20,000, UTAS does rather well for a place that is not as known as universities in Sydney or Melbourne. Low tuition fees, a generous scholarship scheme and Tasmania's low cost of living make it a very popular destination, particularly in hard economic times.

"UTAS is not as reliant on fee paying international students to bolster its budget bottom line as most other universities", said Paul Rigby, Director of International Services, at UTAS. "Most of our revenue from fee paying international students is put back into scholarships for our international students", he said. " As a result we have nearly 20% of our international students studying on UTAS scholarships".

"The main value to UTAS of having international students on campus is to meet our goal of being a truly international university", Mr Rigby said. UTAS has consequently not suffered as much as other universities from the downturn in demand in 2011, caused by the strong Aussie dollar. It also has the highest success rate with international students. "Around 94% of our international students graduate, which is the highest rate in Australia," Mr. Rigby said.

"Our graduates generally do very well in finding work, particularly with our Australian Maritime College, which has the best performance in Australia for finding well-paid work after graduating", he said.