The redesign of the Australian vocational education and training (VET) sector in the early 1990s changed the way the sector has been traditionally structured, organised and most importantly financed and delivered. This VET policy change led to a market model of education and a subsequent increase in the participation of private VET providers and international students in the sector. This article draws on the study of situated realities influencing international students in private VET providers in Melbourne Australia, to show through students' narratives, the consequences for international students' participation and how their outcomes were influenced. It also draws on the notion of social structure as systems of human relations amongst social positions to show that while international students' educational outcomes are complex, the market model of education constitutes the mechanisms, resources, powers and constraints that motivate them to act in the way they do.