By Janaki Kremmer

Sydney

During the past six years, Australia has had rapid success in recruiting students from a relatively new market: Latin America. Since 2004, enrollment of students from the region has risen from 7,000 to 34,000.

Academics and recruiters attribute that success to aggressive outreach and reduced visa restrictions. The unpopularity of the Bush administration within the region, recruiters say, also helped drive students to look to countries other than the United States for foreign study.

But most Latin American students in Australia are only still here to learn English at private vocational colleges and English-language schools. Now, universities are working to recruit some of those students into their undergraduate and graduate degree programs.

"Latin American students provide good classroom diversity and are good-quality students who make an easy transition to Australian life," says Sandra Meiras, director of the office of the deputy vice chancellor for international services at the University of Sydney.

The country's first major recruitment effort began in 2004, when Australia Education International, a government body that promoted higher education overseas at the time, opened an office in Santiago, Chile, its first in Latin America. (The Australian Trade Commission recently took over responsibility for recruiting international students.)

"Santiago was a reasonable hub from which to be based; Chile has a good infrastructure and direct airlines to Australia," says Tony Crooks, a former counselor for Australia Education International in South America who now leads Blue Yonder: Global Education Strategies. "We tried to change things around by holding massive exhibitions inviting students to take a look at what we had to offer and also to make it easier to get visas to travel to Australia to study."

Mr. Crooks says that government officials found that Latin American students were a relatively low risk to overstay their visas.

Ms. Meiras says that Australian institutions relied on fairs, agents, and academic partnerships, particularly in postgraduate research, to expand the flow of students from Latin America.

Mr. Crooks recalls that one of the biggest successes was an exhibition in Chile in 2005 where 1,000 students were expected but 10,000 showed up.

"It's harder here because we don't have the same number of scholarships and assistantantships to offer as the American universities do, but we are trying," he says.

To encourage students to apply to universities, many institutions are encouraging them to enter "pathways programs," which are popular in Australia. These programs allow international students to work on their language skills while taking university courses. Mr. Crooks says such students can apply for visas that cover the duration of their stay in Australia.

"The numbers are small at universities, but these students adapt very well, are very smart, and enjoy engaging with everyone, so they participate fully in university life," says Ms. Meiras.

Andreas Ortiz, came to Australia from Colombia to study English and then stayed on to enroll in an M.B.A. program at La Trobe University, in Melbourne. He says that a degree from Australia cost almost $33,000, while a U.S. one would most likely be much more expensive.

Mr. Ortiz says he is unhappy with the level of teaching in his program and complains that other international students, who are mostly from Asia and the Middle East, are much younger. Yet he is still glad he chose Australia. "It's not that it's just cheaper, but you can also work longer hours off campus and earn money than you can in England," he says.

Also, the United States has many Spanish speakers already, and the competition for jobs is much tougher than it is in Australia, where the ability to speak Spanish can secure you a lucrative job.

Still, says Mr. Crooks, competing with the United States for Latin American students remains a challenge. "They have relatives, green cards or special visas, and bank accounts there that make it easier for them to make the transition to the U.S. more comfortably than to try and come here," he says.