OVERSEAS students face unprecedented levels of regulation aimed at cracking down on the rampant permanent residency market, according to peak university, government and academic authorities.

As Indian newspapers reacted to a fresh attack on one of their student nationals in Melbourne last Friday, Monash demographer Bob Birrell predicted the era of unrestrained permanent residency for former overseas students may be over.

"It's going to be far more difficult for the foreseeable future for graduates of Australian universities - and in particular vocational courses - to get PR," Dr Birrell told theHES.

"We welcome overseas students coming here to take courses they can use for their careers back home, but the era of unrestrained growth may well be coming to an end because so much of the growth in recent years has been driven by the PR carrot."

Resolving the visa issue may be influential in helping defuse the protests by Indian students in Melbourne and Sydney during the past two weeks, after senior observers this week linked students' permanent residency prospects to the unrest.

Melbourne-based CQUniversity international education research centre director Paul Rodan told the HES that many overseas students came from such dire circumstances that the overwhelming motivation was to secure permanent residency.

"For some, it is vital to secure work and send money back home to their families. It's no condemnation to observe that desperate people will often 'do whatever it takes'.

"Indeed, it may not be over-dramatic to describe a small element of the international numbers as de-facto economic refugees," Professor Rodan said.

While also condemning the continuing violence against overseas students, another senior observer with longstanding experience of protests by foreign students said protests often occurred towards the end of semester.

"Many demonstrators - I'm not talking about those that have been beaten up - could well be in breach of the attendance and academic performance conditions on their visas, and are seeking leverage to get the rules relaxed," said the source, who would not be named.

In a controversial policy originally linked to filling apparent domestic skills shortages but now perceived to be damaging the Australian education brand, about 20,000 former overseas students now achieve permanent residency every year.

They are mostly university graduates - some 8000 were accountants last year - but permanent residency visas issued to cooks trebled from 951 in 2005-06 to 3251 last year.