The country’s biggest provider of accommodation for university students, Scape, is pressing ahead with 17 new purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) buildings, despite its portfolio of rooms sitting at just 25 per cent occupancy.

Since the onset of the pandemic, the closure of the international border and the loss of foreign students, who are not expected to return until the beginning of next year, have devastated the sector.

International education in Australia—the country's third-largest export industry and worth $40 billion to the economy—has stalled in the last 12 months with the knock on effects expected to create $1.5 billion in losses this year across the PBSA sector.