About HigherStudy HigherStudy is an Australian education and visa guidance service for students and workers already in Australia. We are part of the Sourced group, founded on 23 years of industry experience, more than 100 Australian colleges and universities represented directly and through partners, and over 5,000 students guided to Australia. What we do. We provide guidance and information across the pathways that matter onshore: student visa 500 — initial admission, further studies, visa extension, and course or provider change; the Temporary Graduate visa 485; skilled visas 189, 190 and 491; the Skills in Demand visa 482, including DAMA pathways and occupations covered under Industry Labour Agreements; employer-sponsored visa 186; skills assessments through bodies such as VETASSESS, TRA and Engineers Australia; and job-search support in DAMA regions and for ILA-covered occupations. How it works. Our AI counsellor is free to use, any hour, from anywhere — built on a system that organises the official rules and sources in one place, so every answer comes from the same current information, never from whoever happened to answer. Our system maps courses to occupations, assessment requirements, state lists and DAMA regions — information otherwise scattered across dozens of official sources. Experienced counsellors handle the personal layer: your finances, your goals, your situation. What we charge — and what we don't. Counselling costs nothing. Admission, course or provider change, and further-studies placements are free for students — providers pay us, and we say so plainly. Defined casework is charged from a published price list, with government and assessing-body fees always separate and always stated. Where we stand. We never guarantee an admission, a visa, or a job — those decisions belong to providers, the Australian Government, and employers. We provide general information from official, dated sources. Personal migration advice and casework are handled by MARA-registered partner agents, as Australian law requires. That boundary is our founding principle.
Read our story · from the director
What free visa counselling actually means — What is free, what is not, and where a registered agent is required.