THE new overseas student strategy that Education Minister Chris Evans will sell in China next week is silent on tough new visa rules.

"Senator Evans should know more than most the impact of (the visa changes) in terms of morale," said former Liberal MP Bruce Baird, who reviewed legislation protecting international students for the government.

Senator Evans will fly to Beijing with senior university administrators in an attempt to rescue the international student market, amid fears of $7 billion being wiped from Australia's fourth-biggest export industry.

China is Australia's largest source of foreign students. Enrolments have plummeted from 315,870 last year to 286,558, and look as if they will go into freefall.

The 12-point strategy focuses on improving the expectations and experiences of overseas students, as well as ensuring better consumer protection if their college goes broke.

It adopts most of the recommendations from Mr Baird's review, including a national community engagement strategy, better information on safety and living here, and compulsory health insurance.

The strategy was first mooted at the Council of Australian Governments meeting in April last year after attacks on Indian students.

But the combined effects of visa changes, the rising value of the dollar, increasing competition from Britain and the US, the collapse of some private colleges and the talking down of immigration during the election campaign have gouged the market.

Mr Baird said he was delighted with the strategy but said the government must act to change the poor perception created by changes to skilled migration visas.

"The strategy doesn't address all the students who are still here (and who came with the expectation of permanent residency) and that generates bad will," Mr Baird said.

Fred Hilmer, vice-chancellor of the University of NSW, said the strategy was wrong-headed and simplistic. "It supposes the student experience here is worse now than it was last year or the year before that," Professor Hilmer said.

He said the "sticker price" of an Australian degree had gone up compared with the US and Britain because of the rising dollar. But recent huge budget cuts to British and US universities and the ability of students to work and gain workplace experience here meant an Australian degree was, in fact, more valuable.

"Australian education needs a decent international marketing campaign," Professor Hilmer said. "We are doing it as individual universities, but that should receive strong government backing."

Paul Rodan, professor of international education at CQUniversity, said more stringent health insurance requirements might be another financial disincentive.

He was also concerned the strategy overlooked the housing crisis, which was central to the issue of student safety.