Hi! So I was debating on wether or not I should attend university in Australia. I live in the US right now, but I don’t see myslef staying here. I was wondering if anyone is an international student in Australia and if they like it or not and wether it would be a good idea. What are the differences between college in the US and Australia. Also, is it easier to gain citizenship in Australia if I attend school there ?
I’m an Australian senior, meaning I graduate this november. Obviously, I’m not in college but one of my sisters just graduated and the other is in college, so I know quite a bit. Firstly, what you call college isn’t called college here, it’s called university, or uni :). To answer your question, if I were you I wouldn’t come here. The reason for that is nothing to do with the quality or prestige of our universities (they’re quite prestigious, more so in the academic world), but we really don’t have the ‘college’ experience. ALL of our universities are ‘commuter schools’. People just go to classes and lectures then they go home.
Most (or all, I’m not sure) of our universities have what WE call ‘colleges’. These colleges are basically residential communities: so it’s like living on campus. But it’s not really just a dorm, they have free tutoring and sports teams and stuff like that and have much more of an independent community feeling. If you do this you would get more of that US college experience, but you’d have to dish out quite a bit of extra money (15k-25k, depending on the residential college you choose).
Now, let’s talk about costs. Australian students generally don’t pay for university upfront, we all get a HECs loan, which is a government loan that you don’t have to pay back till you earn a certain amount of money per year. But, you are not an Australian citizen and thus wouldn’t be eligible for this. However, most universities offer scholarships. I’m going to use one of the main universities in Brisbane, Australia as an example of the tuition for international students as well as scholarships available to them since I live in this city. This university is the University of Queensland (UQ) and it’s quite highly ranked (63rd or something like that on QS World University Rankings). This university has differing tuition fees for different degrees (so, medical degrees would cost more than say arts degrees. And yes, we do medicine at undergraduate level here). I’m going to use the standard bachelor of arts degree as an example. This degree would cost around $24700 per year (keep in mind that’s in Australian dollars, so it’s probably a bit less in US dollars). Bachelors degrees here also run for only three years with the option of an honours year, so you’d have to pay $24700 x 3, so that’s $74100 for all three years.
Now let’s talk about scholarships and financial aid. I just found out via the website (I’ve googled many of these things for you hahaha) that UQ offers a loan program for US students (as well as students from a few other countries). Check it out here http://www.uq.edu.au/international-students/north-america . As well as this you might be able to receive some scholarships, check the available ones out here http://scholarships.uq.edu.au/program/uq-academic-scholarship-program .
In terms of accommodation, as I said before- if you want the ‘college’ experience with a campus type community, you’d have to pay for residential college. Here is a link to the page with links to each of the individual colleges websites. http://www.uq.edu.au/student-services/accommodation/colleges
Keep in mind some of them are co-ed and some are single sex. Also, the prices listed cover meals (unless there is a self-catered option, which I think some of them have but I think they’re only for graduate students) What I recommend is this: study at college for a year, make some friends and then move out with them into a share house, which can work out a lot cheaper.
Overall, Australia is a really laid back country, and if you think that’s for you (oh and read the weather reports first to figure out if you can handle it!! :p), then I say give it a go.
Oh also! I’ll give you a run down of other universities in Australia. In terms of prestige and ranking, the best university in Australia is the Australian National University, which is located in Canberra (the main city of our capital territory, so basically like our Washington DC). Most people consider Canberra to be dreary and depressing, it apparently lacks in night life etc. So think about this 
But if it sounds like your cup of tea then go for it. After this, in my opinion the next best is the University of Melbourne (UoM). Basically everyone in Australia loves Melbourne (though I’ve only been tehre once and I think I didn’t see the ‘real’ Melbourne, as I didn’t like it all that much). It’s very cultural and has a big hipster cafe culture. The university is very highly ranked, especially in the humanities I think. They also have a good department for film and theatre etc. called the Faculty of the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA). It was previously an independent college simply known as the Victorian College of the Arts and has apparently lost some of its prestige after integrating in the UoM, but anyway! (Sorry I got sidetracked, arts is my cup of tea 
). Another quite good university (I think, but I’m not sure as I haven’t really looked into it) is the University of New South Wales in Sydney. Other universities I can think of off the top of my head that I think are worth a second look (we have some very bad universities in the rural areas) are the University of Western Australia in Perth (this one is quite respected I think), University of Technology Sydney, Queensland University of Technology, Deakin University, Curtin University, Monash University, Griffith University (has a very good conservatorium of music) and Victoria University.
Also to give you an idea of our city sizes- Sydney is around 4 million, same with Melbourne. Brisbane is around 2.5 million. All of our major cities are near the coast.
Feel free to ask anything else you want to know. Wow I typed a lot!
I realised I deviated so far from your question 
Basically if I tell you not to come here you probably shouldn’t listen to me because I really want that US college experience. I think international students here have a great time, especially if they get involved. You can join clubs and stuff. I think that you should try and live in a residential college for first (‘freshman’) year.