Austudy

Financial help if you're 25 or older and studying or an Australian Apprentice.

Eligibility basics

• you're at least 25 years old, and
• a full time student in an approved course or Australian Apprenticeship, and
• you're under the income and assets test limits

 Who can get it

• Students
  • You must be:
    • 25 or older, and
    • studying full time in an approved course at an approved institution
• Apprentices
  • You must be:
    • 25 or older, and
    • doing an Australian Apprenticeship

You’ll need to meet:

• residence rules
• an income test, and
• an assets test

Payments this applies to

You must study an approved course with an approved institution to get:

• Youth Allowance as a student
• Austudy, or
• Pensioner Education Supplement (PES).
• You can’t get Austudy if you’ve already done a doctorate.
• You can’t get Pensioner Education Supplement if you’ve already done a:
  • masters, or
  • doctorate.

There can sometimes be different course and provider criteria for ABSTUDY.

Approved higher education courses

You can get Youth Allowance, Austudy or PES for higher education courses. To be an approved course the institution must be approved for the Higher Education Loan Program (HELP).

This includes:

• HECS-HELP
• FEE-HELP
• OS-HELP, and
• SA-HELP.

You won’t have to take out a HELP loan to get a payment from us. The course only needs to be eligible for it.

Go to Providers that offer Commonwealth assistance on the StudyAssist website for a list of approved higher education providers.

Read more about HELP on the Department of Education and Training website.

If you're an education provider wanting to become an approved higher education provider, go to Department of Education and Training.

Distance and online education

If you study by distance education, you need to do an approved course with an approved institution.

You may be a distance education student if you don't study on campus or have face to face classes. Distance education courses are online, by correspondence, or both. You can study these courses through:

• the Open Training and Education Network (OTEN)
• Open Universities Australia (OUA)
• an Australian university
• TAFE
• a private provider, or
• a secondary school.

Eligibility for student payments is the same whether you study through distance education or on campus. You must have a full time study load to get Youth Allowance, Austudy or ABSTUDY Living Allowance.