Central Queensland University is now the largest educator of full-degree international students studying within Australia, based on enrolments. That is according to IDP Education Australia figures for this year's Term 1 intakes which show the Rockhampton-based University now has 10 119 full-degree international students on its Australian campuses (which include Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and the Gold Coast).

International students now make up 48% as a proportion of the overall CQU student population. A total of 61.2% of CQU internationals are postgraduates and 38.8% are undergraduates.

CQU is Australia's top educator of students from a total of 18 countries including India, Bangladesh, Thailand and Pakistan. CQU is also first destination of preference in Queensland for students from 34 countries. Over the 12 months from first-term 2005 to first-term 2006, CQU's international enrolments increased by 12.4% overall (compared to 4.9% for the sector).

For full-degree international students onshore, over that period, CQU's increase was 13.8% compared to the Australia growth of 5.5%. CQU’s top 5 source countries are India, China, Bangladesh, Thailand and South Korea. While Australia-wide enrolments from Thailand decreased by 3.5%, CQU’s enrolments increased by 1.9%. CQU’s growth in student numbers from India was 40.1%, compared to 17.4% nationally.

The IDP figures also show that CQU has 1002 international students offshore (including distance education and operations in Singapore, Shanghai, Fiji and Hong Kong) for a total international enrolment of 11,121.