30 Mar 2020

Coronavirus: Multi-billion dollar foreign student industry takes a hit

From Morning Report, 6:45 am on 30 March 2020

The $5 billion foreign student industry is facing a massive downturn with as many as half of this year's enrolements now in doubt.

Visa figures indicate only 60,000 of the nearly 120,000 international students who come to New Zealand each year made it into the country before lockdown.

Some are already leaving and there are grave fears thousands of students expected later in the year will never come.

RNZ education correspondent John Gerritsen reports.