October 2015
International students studying science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in Australian higher education institutions
This snapshot provides an overview of international student enrolments in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) courses at higher education institutions in Australia in 2014. 
Just over a quarter or 64,248 of international student enrolments in the higher education sector were enrolments in STEM courses. In 2014, more than half (53.4%) of postgraduate research enrolments were in STEM related courses (Table 1).
 
Figure 1 illustrates the trend in international postgraduate research enrolments in STEM and other courses in the thirteen years from 2002 to 2014. In 2014, there were 9,844 enrolments in STEM courses, an 8.5% increase on the 9,069 enrolments recorded in 2013. This compares with the average annual growth rate for STEM enrolments of 12.8% per year over the 2002 to 2014 period. 

Students from China contributed the largest share (20.7%) of postgraduate research enrolments in STEM courses in 2014. Iran accounted for the next largest share of enrolments with 7.3%, followed by Malaysia (5.9%) and India (5.5%).
 
In 2014, 31.5% of all postgraduate research students at Australian higher education institutions were international students. Even higher proportions were in STEM fields, including Engineering and Related Technologies (54.2%), Information Technology (51.6%) and Agriculture, Environmental & Related studies (45.6%)(Table 1, far right column).