Record numbers of international students are arriving in Australia each year.
One of their challenges is finding accommodation in a competitive rental market, so many choose university-affiliated housing.
It's billed as an all-inclusive package where students can live near campus in secure accommodation.
International student Farhan Chowdhury says he was shocked to discover that after leaving his university-owned accommodation, he owed outstanding fees equivalent to almost ten times his weekly rent.
He says the University of Technology (UTS), Sydney, warned if he didn't pay up, he would not be able complete his engineering degree.
"They just said the amount was about $2,700 and this needs to be paid or else I won't be able to graduate. I was absolutely...you know I had no idea this was coming my way. It just didn't make sense to me."
Mr Chowdhury had returned home to Bangladesh due to health reasons, but says before he left he gave the required two weeks' notice.
He says the university failed to properly terminate his lease and costs accrued, a claim UTS rejects
On his return, Mr Chowdhury feared the dispute could cost him his student visa.
Sean Stimson is a lawyer at Redfern Legal Centre who works closely with international students.
He says Mr Chowdhury's case is not isolated.
"Certainly we can see in Farhan's case, the threat of being able to remove someone from their course of studies is certainly, as we have already touched on, unjust and unconscionable and we see that across many education providers and many halls of residency or purpose-built student accommodation."
Mr Stimson says the case highlights another way international students can potentially be exploited when they're already among the most vulnerable in the housing market.
Foreign students have told SBS their biggest concerns over housing are availability and affordability.
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"You have to work really hard to get accommodation here."
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"I think it's very expensive here."
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"Based on my own experience, it's very hard."
MALE 3
"I'm living four people in one apartment so it's quite difficult."
Compared to sharing a two-bedroom flat with up to nine other people, student accommodation is an appealing although more expensive alternative and it's growing.
According to global real estate firm Savills, there were more than 71,000 beds in purpose-built student accommodation in Australia's eight capital cities in 2017.
But Mr Stimson says the boom has run ahead of regulation and foreign students have the most to lose under some tenancy arrangements.
"A lot of the protections are stripped away which allows the owners and operators to pretty much do whatever they want to do."
In New South Wales and Victoria, providers of student housing can be exempt from the regulatory protections covering most tenancies.
Mr Stimson says as a result, they say students can be subject to excessive fees or bonds and unfair notice periods.
A UTS spokesman told SBS News it has "transparent licence agreements that students sign up to," as well as debt management procedures and processes for early departures on compassionate grounds.
Mr Chowdhury says, in the end, the university allowed him to pay off a lower debt of $2,000 in instalments.
And his fears about losing his visa over the dispute weren't fulfilled.
"Obviously I didn't want to pay that amount anyway but I had to because they had that unfair leverage on me."
Mr Stimson insists housing debts shouldn't be tied to enrolment in the first place.
"The university in this case threatened him with his ability not to graduate. Which is that leverage point again. They should be in isolation to each other - a tenancy dispute is a tenancy dispute."
He says reform at a national level is needed, so students like Mr Chowdhury can graduate based on performance, not their living situation.
Indian international student in Melbourne Arshdeep Singh say when new students approach for accommodation they are asked for almost double rent, and when they try and leave the place bond is often not returned on different pretexts.
