We list 5 Engineering programmes in Australia at four universities, and every one of the five carries a verified tuition figure read off the university's own page. It is a short list, and what it shows is consistent enough to be worth stating plainly.
There is no cheap tier
Annual tuition across the five runs from AUD 42,000 to AUD 61,000, with a median of AUD 43,500.
The interesting number is not the top — it is the bottom. The cheapest engineering programme we hold in Australia is the University of Canberra's Master of Engineering at AUD 42,000 a year, and the spread from there to the dearest is a factor of about 1.45.
Compare the shape to the other destinations in this cluster. Canadian electrical engineering runs from CAD 14,373 to CAD 73,760 — a fivefold spread with a genuine budget tier at a research university. UK engineering starts at £18,700. Australia has nothing equivalent: the floor and the ceiling sit close together, and both are high.
That matters for how you plan. In Canada or the UK, choosing a less famous university is a lever that can halve the bill. In Australia, on our data, it is not — you are choosing between AUD 42,000 and AUD 61,000, and the decision is about the programme rather than the price. Budget accordingly rather than hoping to find a cheaper equivalent further down the list.
The five are at the University of Canberra, Federation University Australia, the Australian National University and UNSW Sydney. Four programmes are master's and one is a bachelor's; four of the five run 24 months.
Two years, and what that costs on top
A two-year master's in Australia means two years of living costs in one of the more expensive countries a student can choose, on top of AUD 42,000 or more a year in tuition. Run that multiplication before anything else — it is the number that decides whether Australia is viable, and it is considerably larger than the tuition line suggests on its own.
Entry requirements
Our listings record no academic cut-off for these five, so we will not quote one. Australian engineering admissions care about the match between your bachelor's discipline and the master's stream — an electrical stream expects electrical foundations — and for professionally accredited routes they also care whether your Indian degree is recognised under the Washington Accord, which affects what you can do with the qualification afterwards rather than whether you get in.
The graduate visa, and the India clause
This is where Australia pays you back, and there is a provision for Indian nationals specifically that most general guides omit.
The Temporary Graduate visa (subclass 485), Post-Higher Education Work stream, normally gives a coursework master's graduate 2 years. Under the Australia–India Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement, the length for Indian nationals is set out separately:
- Bachelor degree with first class honours in STEM, including ICT — 3 years
- Master's, coursework, extended and research — 3 years
- Doctoral degrees — 4 years
So an Indian engineering master's graduate gets three years, not two. Against a two-year degree that is a materially different return on the money than the headline rules suggest, and it is the single strongest argument in Australia's favour for this audience.
Three conditions catch people out. You must be aged 35 or under when you apply — an age limit that now excludes a good number of people who study after several years of work, so check it against your own timeline before you commit. You must be in Australia when you apply. And the visa costs from AUD 5,750, which is a real line in the budget rather than an administrative fee.
More on the comparison in post-study work visas explained, and the wider picture in studying in Australia for Indian students.
Browse the set: Engineering in Australia, master's only, or the subject across every destination we list.
Catalogue figures counted from our published listings on 20 October 2026: all 5 programmes carry a tuition figure verified against the university's own page, in Australian dollars. Visa durations, the AI-ECTA schedule, the age limit and the application charge from the Department of Home Affairs, read 20 October 2026. Immigration rules change; confirm on homeaffairs.gov.au before you plan around them.