The new Skilled Occupation List will make it much harder for international students with vocational qualifications to gain permanent residency.

CIT chief executive officer Adrian Moran says there is already anecdotal evidence about students who are anxious about the changes, which have happened since they began their courses.

"The early indicators for second semester this year -and certainly first semester next year in terms of applications - are that applications are down," he said.

The CIT caters for more than 1,400 overseas students. Most are on vocational education visas and studying in areas like health, welfare and hospitality.

Under the former rules a diploma in many vocational areas provided enough immigration points for overseas students to gain permanent residency.

Mr Moran says not all courses offered by the CIT are affected by the changes. But he does admit the Institute will have to change the way it does business.

"I don't see that the changes to the skills list will result in 1,400 students not coming," he said.

"I think we'll see a cut and at the moment it looks like if everything else followed through somewhere between 20, 25 or 30 percent, that's if we do nothing.

"Part of our task is to go to what is on the list and reorientate our strategy and see what we want to offer or may not be offering in such an obvious way."

Mr Moran says the new rules may particularly affect the ACT where there are still shortages in areas like hospitality.

"It seems an unfortunate collusion of events that here in the ACT we've got skills shortages and yet we are not able to tap into a flow of students that express an interest in that skill area."