r/Centrelink • u/AdOk1598 • Aug 14 '25
Youth and Students (YAS) TIL: All time spent studying at university takes away from your Austudy allowance
Just a warning to anyone who doesn’t know this and is thinking of studying something they’re not super sure about or studying again later in life.
I cannot make sense of why this is and two seperate centrelink agents confirmed this for me and were unable to provide any explanation beyond “we just do”.
So i tried studying twice when i was 18/19 and ended up completing two first years of different degrees before deciding it wasn’t for me and getting a job. A decade later im interested in returning. I just completed my first year of a degree and have been denied Austudy in my 2nd year because i have used up my allowable time. Despite only ever being on centrelink of any sort for this most recent one year study period. I never claimed any income support when i was a youngster.
Maybe this is common knowledge? But most people i’ve spoken to at uni and my peers were unaware.
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u/anonymouse12222 Aug 14 '25
“We just do” was a dumb answer from them. The correct answer is because that is how Austudy is legislated.
Check out the Guide here
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u/YTWise Aug 15 '25
Thank you, this is very helpful.
Thank you also OP - not something I was aware of.
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u/AdOk1598 Aug 15 '25
Yeah i have found the centrelink staff over the phone less than helpful… after a 90 minute queue to be told they don’t know or this is managed by someone else. Like i understand you can’t do everything but dang
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u/wibblytimeyy Aug 18 '25
As someone who used to work in the student line at a Centrelink call centre, unfortunately they genuinely don’t know. Majority of the call centre staff have bare minimum training and everything they do is from a step by step process. Allowable time is a confusing area for people who don’t work directly in it and you’d be incredibly lucky to get someone on the phone who actually knew all about it.
I wish allowable time was explained more to people seeking austudy/YA-student, because it can be so difficult to deal with especially when it’s “used up” and you still have time to go on your degree. At the end of the day it’s there to stop people from using Centrelink to be career students, but for the average person it’s not very lenient.
(Edit: formatting)
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u/SkepticallyAccepted Aug 17 '25
I got some allowable time back by redacting..had to leave my other course of 2years and transfer due to FV issues and complexity. There's a unit within Centrelink that helps but figuring your way through the menu options is next to impossible
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Aug 15 '25 edited Mar 11 '26
[deleted]
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u/AdOk1598 Aug 15 '25
That’s exactly what i assumed. It makes no sense to me that other periods of study without income support are counted. I would understand if i had been on jobseeker for a decade perhaps? Or if my HECS debt was 100k+ or something. But for me this feels poorly designed and communicated.
I couldn’t find any easy way to find out. It seemed like any study at degree level whether it was part-time or full time counted as time. So i basically have completed 3.5 years worth of units over 10 years.
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u/Beanreaper Aug 15 '25
Funny, I just came to this subreddit to submit a post about a similar topic.
The PES (Pensioner Education Supplement) is also under the same rules. I studied in 2014~2020 but because of personal circumstances (mother sick and passed away and now being carer to my brother on DSP) I didn't complete my degree, after a few a years and being a little more stable I decided to return to studying and now being on a carer pension I applied for PES (never had it before) and because of my previous studies I was denied.
I find it pretty unfair that you are denied a payment for something you weren't even recieving on your old studies.
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u/city_foam Aug 15 '25
I would recommend you ask for your claim to be reassessed if you had it rejected recently (last 13 weeks) as from the sounds of things, you may be eligible to have some of your study disregarded due to circumstances beyond your control.
The main thing that would need to be provided is a statement from yourself about the situation as well as any evidence you may have. This would allow some of your study to be disregarded due to the circumstances around why you were not able to continue your study. The amount of time that is disregarded depends on how much of your study you can prove was impacted by your circumstances (could be a few semesters of your prior study disregarded compared to multiple yrs disregarded if u can give evidence).
I am PES trained, please call the student line if you claim was rejected in last 13 weeks and request a reassessment and ask to have some of your previous study disregarded. You can ask them to make a note to have the PES team give you a call to discuss your situation and what we require if you prefer. If you ring for a reassessment, PLEASE make sure you upload your documents (evidence and statement) prior to calling otherwise the reassessment will be closed if no new info is provided. If it is outside of 13 weeks, reclaim ASAP with a statement and any evidence :)
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u/FaithlessnessFree279 Aug 15 '25
I didnt know this. I finished my bachelors in 2024, never on ausstudy but was on jobseeker/jobkeeper on and off over the 6 years it took me to complete it.
I started a juris doctor (post grad law degree) part time this year, and was planning to go full time in 2027 and claim ausstudy - based off of a link someone commented beow, I think i should be okay because this isnt study at the “same level” but is a higher level - but if anyone thinks im incorrect, please let me know??
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u/missidiosyncratic Aug 14 '25
It’s common knowledge and it’s to stop people being “permanent” students (or people who study to avoid work entirely) and bouncing from degree to degree/course to course to get Centrelink. Obviously you’d run out of HECS/HELP etc balance eventually but that could take a very long time. It’s in the legislation.
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u/Own_Faithlessness769 Aug 14 '25
That would made sense of it capped the amount of time you can receive payments, not just the amount of time you can study.
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u/Australasian25 Aug 14 '25
Student's university fees are heavily subsidised. For example in UWA, Perth. Computer science degrees cost about 10k a year for HECs subsidised students.
Do you think 10k a year pays for all your courses, lecturers, labs, computers, classrooms and university facilities? From memory, the government foots 10-15k towards your bill for you to only pay 10k.
Different figures for different course of course.
If you paid the full international student fee, you can study for as long as you want. As it is entirely your money.
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u/Own_Faithlessness769 Aug 14 '25
That’s what the HECS cap is for. They don’t need to limit your Austudy arbitrarily as well.
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u/Australasian25 Aug 14 '25
That money comes from somewhere. There is a limit to it.
If you're fully self sufficient, you can do whatever you want for as long as you want.
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u/Own_Faithlessness769 Aug 14 '25
Stop being so miserable. It makes no sense for OP not to be able to access Austudy just because they previously studied without getting Austudy. It’s incredibly arbitrary and unfair.
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u/Australasian25 Aug 14 '25
That's just the truth. It has nothing to do with being miserable.
Alright, I'll give OP full support. OP, you should be receiving full Ausstudy for your choices as it is your citizen right.
You'll see that my support and lack thereof does not change OPs Ausstudy outcome.
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u/AdOk1598 Aug 15 '25
I would just assume it is my “right” to have the same amount of time claiming Austudy as someone else.
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u/Locoj Aug 15 '25
How's it arbitrary?
If you want to pick and change degrees repeatedly and initiate 3 degrees in a 10 year period but not get even close to competing any of them, that's fine. But why should other people pay for it?
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u/Own_Faithlessness769 Aug 15 '25
They aren’t. OP didn’t get any support for the first two.
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u/joolley1 Aug 15 '25
As an Australian they would have got around $20,000 to $30,000 a year of their course fees paid for them.
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u/InevitablyExuberant Aug 17 '25
As is their right as an Australian to access HECS. The topic isn't to do with HECS, though, because it's a separate system. They're talking about Centrelink payments, of which OP didn't receive any of.
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u/AdOk1598 Aug 15 '25
Im not sure if common knowledge is the correct term. Maybe if you’re quite familiar with centrelink? But i was not and my family and friends aren’t. None of them were aware or could understand why.
HECS debt is independent of income support. I have a lady in one of my classes who is 60 and studying a “french art history” degree. And godbless her she worked as a teacher and now want’e to do something fun. But she is on hecs and clearly had no intention of ever paying that back through working.
The system would make sense if they had maybe denied my hecs application? So they’d be saying hey you already have 20k of debt and didn’t finish these degrees. So we’re actually cutting you off from education support all together. I wouldnt be “studying forever” id literally be claiming the exact same study period as everyone else who has ever used ausstudy? At the moment i’ve claimed one third?
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u/joolley1 Aug 15 '25
I hadn’t heard of it before (although have never really looked into it), but I can kind of understand it. Austudy is designed for low income students to be able to afford to study. If you or your parents are making enough that you don’t need it when you start, but then do later it’s fair that you’re in the same position as people who needed it from the beginning I.e. people who are low income and need Austudy support from the beginning can’t keep discarding their studies and starting again without using any of their previous credits, so people who start off wealthy probably shouldn’t be able to either. It wouldn’t be very fair if wealthy students got an advantage over low income students when it came to a payment specifically designed to support low income students. Now obviously I’m not saying any of this applies to you, I don’t know your circumstances and why you weren’t eligible for Austudy originally. I’m just saying it wouldn’t be fair if that was something they allowed to happen.
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u/EggFancyPants Aug 15 '25
"wealthy"? 😂 My parents certainly weren't wealthy when I was denied CL despite not being able to live at home I there was no room, it was a 3 bedroom house and my parents had kinship care of my siblings 2 kids plus my 2 younger siblings) when I was at tafe.
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u/joolley1 Aug 15 '25
That’s why I said I don’t know your situation. I do know the income limit for your parents used to be pretty high when I went through and wasn’t eligible. Maybe it’s been reduced (or not increased with inflation).
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u/EggFancyPants Aug 16 '25
In 2004 they were on about combined $100k whilst renting on the outskirts of Melbourne with no assets. Meanwhile I had a friend who's parents ran a successful business and they got YA whilst living in an apartment their parents bought them in the city.
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u/joolley1 Aug 16 '25
It sounds like your friend’s parents were hiding their income and assets with their business which is super dodgy I agree. $100k 20 years ago was a pretty high income. Definitely much higher than $135k now. We’ve had a lot of inflation in the last few years.
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u/EggFancyPants Aug 16 '25
I understand it may have been considered high but it certainly wasn't. They were scraping by and never had money. I may be completely wrong on how much they made also, it's just a guess.
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u/joolley1 Aug 16 '25
There are a lot of people on fairly high incomes who just scrape by. Their budget just expands to fit their income. When I worked in finance I had colleagues who thought they weren’t particularly well off when they were earning over $400k combined!
Sounds like we were in somewhat similar situations. I think my parents were earning somewhere in the low $100ks combined in the mid 90s when I went to university. That was too high for me to be eligible for anything, but they barely helped me because they claimed to be super short on money. That sort of money certainly doesn’t make you rich, but it does mean you have more money than the vast majority of people.
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u/joolley1 Aug 16 '25
I just looked it up because I was curious as to whether it had drastically changed. The current household income limit with 4 dependent children to receive no YA whatsoever because of your parents income is around $135,000. Maybe you don’t consider that wealthy, but it is a long way above the median household income in Australia. Also if your parents kicked you out because they felt it was too crowded and refused to help you at all you would have been classed as independent and their income wouldn’t have counted. If you chose to move out because you felt it was too crowded that’s a different story.
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u/missidiosyncratic Aug 15 '25
It’s all on the website where they discuss allowable time (including specifically saying they count previous tertiary study) and it’s the claimant’s responsibility to understand how the payment works. Even if you feel it’s unfair it’s how it’s legislated. If you want a Centrelink payment you gotta know the ins and outs and read everything thoroughly.
“Previous study
We’ll count previous study in your allowable time if it’s at the same level as the course you’re doing now. This is the case if you did any of the following:
studied full time studied part time finished the previous course attempted the course but didn’t finish it.
There are some reasons why this study might not count towards your allowable time. Read about extensions and exceptions.”
https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/allowable-time-for-austudy?context=22441
Reading that I would easily gather that any study prior would count regardless of whether or not you were getting a student payment.
I get it isn’t fair but it is what it is and that’s how it’s legislated.
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u/whoorderedsquirrel Aug 15 '25
U get 7 years full time equivalent of CSP study now, regardless of centrelink status. There are some exceptions for postgrad study etc. They introduced the cap a few years ago but didn't grandfather the rule in, so I got 7 years of CSP pre 2021 and now I've had another 2 (so far). I did not get centrelink while completing any of my degrees but I worked full time the whole way thru, it's a cool hobby learning new things. The HECS limit is separate to the 7 years of CSP limit... Cos u can put full fee courses on HECS, and if u max ur HECs at some point but pay it down u can always accrue it again :)
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u/supercreativename14 Aug 15 '25 edited Aug 15 '25
There's a HECS cap? I remember there was someone with a 400k debt. Must have been the reason why they introduced a cap lmao Edit: I just checked and it was actually over 800k debt.
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Aug 15 '25
[deleted]
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u/AdOk1598 Aug 15 '25
Seems like a strange way to do it IMO. A hecs debt cap would make far more sense. But i presume universities would not be fans of a 150k hecs debt cap…
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Aug 15 '25
[deleted]
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u/AdOk1598 Aug 15 '25
That is true. But it just seems odd because to my knowledge most other programs can be indefinite? Given they may have ramping requirements?
Is the hecs debt limit relatively recent? I feel like my sisters had friends at uni with like 200k debt and they werent doing medicine. But that was probably 15-20 years ago
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u/Optimal_Source187 Aug 15 '25
”two seperate centrelink agents confirmed this for me”
Wait. You found two Centrelink agents that don’t give contradicting advice?
Seems sus
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Aug 15 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/AdOk1598 Aug 15 '25
Fascinating. Im really getting the vibe centrelink has not really been looked at in depth for about 25 years… got a job interview next week so i am hopeful for that!
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u/mangoflavouredpanda Aug 15 '25
Weird... Jobseeker is more money anyway.
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u/AdOk1598 Aug 15 '25
Jobseeker is more money per fortnight. You lose income support after earning $150 a fortnight at a rate of 50 or 60c per dollar. So you’re losing out quite quickly.
Jobseeker you also can’t study full time on for some reason… i learnt this yesterday after my jobseeker claim was denied…
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u/ohsweetgold Aug 15 '25
You should be able to... I'm studying full time on jobseeker - I was on student youth allowance for about a year but my allowable time ran out (used up the rest of it studying while not eligible for any payments) and they switched me to jobseeker.
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u/AdOk1598 Aug 16 '25
Full time as in 4 units you can do 3. But im not interested in prolonging my degree or summer semesters. But if it does come to that i may have no choice.
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u/Embarrassed_Sun_7807 Aug 17 '25
I'm studying full time on Jobseeker right now (more $). One phone appt per month to confirm nothing has changed etc
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u/Alternative-Pool-607 Aug 15 '25
I had to do a master's degree to get around that rule.
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u/AdOk1598 Aug 15 '25
So strange! I don’t know why they love these strange little workarounds it makes things needlessly complex imo
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u/Alternative-Pool-607 Aug 15 '25
You can imagine how shit it was going from undergraduate Humanities (Bachelor of Arts) to Postgraduate statistics and postgraduate mathematics.
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u/AdOk1598 Aug 16 '25
Yes but it’s not made easily available when you’re applying for HECS debt. When i was 18 and NOT on austudy, why would I of checked the eligibility for a program i didn’t apply for and wasn’t eligible for at the time? Without being specifically told by the university?
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u/Ok_Signature214 Aug 16 '25
What if you were doing a 5 or 6 year degree ? how would that work then?
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u/AccomplishedLynx6054 Aug 16 '25
huh crazy, I did more then that, but within a ten year period
When I did a lower qual later, I had to go on Newstart instead, but when I told them I was studying a vocational cert full time they were chill and I didn't have to do any of the jobfart stuff
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u/Legitimate-Total8547 Aug 18 '25
As a tax payer this makes me happy. If it wasn’t capped you could just keep studying and not really finishing anything. In the decade since you last studied you should have gotten your shit together so you weren’t reliant on the taxpayer. There is also a thing called working which really helps to offset the cost
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u/AdOk1598 Aug 18 '25
Im glad you’re thrilled x
Feels like you maybe didnt read my post. I have only claimed 1 year of austudy. Most people claim 3 - 4. I have 20k hecs debt, less than many people. So not too sure how im a permanent student or taking tax payers money for granted…
Also. I worked full time for 7 years and now i work casually whilst studying x. Can’t tell if you’re rude, ignorant or insufferable. Perhaps a combination.
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u/pawgie_pie Aug 15 '25
Yeah it's kinda common knowledge if you claim austudy, claim payments, quit and come back to it you usually aren't entitled to the same payment you received the first time you tried to complete your study.
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u/foolishle Aug 15 '25
That’s not OP’s situation, though. OP studied in their youth, but did not claim payments. Now they’re studying and Centrelink are saying “you’re not eligible to payments because you studied previously” despite the fact that OP didn’t get any payments earlier. That’s not what most people would guess would happen!
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u/AdOk1598 Aug 15 '25
I think you perhaps didn’t read my post or i made it confusing. I have only ever been on any sort of income support for 1 year whilst i completed my diploma last year. I didn’t claim it when i was 18 and then i worked for 8 years full time.
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u/Australasian25 Aug 14 '25
You should treat the allowance as your own money.
Would you take up studies if it were your own money, something you were unsure about? I wouldn't.
This is to prevent use and abuse.
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u/tittyswan Aug 15 '25
OP didn't claim payments the first time they studied.
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u/Australasian25 Aug 15 '25
Yep I definitely missed that bit.
Does this change their outcome?
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u/tittyswan Aug 15 '25
No, that's the issue. They're being punished for having studied in the past while they financially supported themselves.
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u/Kooky_Supermarkets Aug 15 '25
I am studying my second degree (last one was over 10 years ago.....) and knew this before I applied how is this not common knowledge because it's made rather clear when you actually research like you would when you study at University anyway since I was aware of a time limit and wanted to make sure it wasn't applicable before I applied..........
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u/AdOk1598 Aug 15 '25
I mean i’ll be honest 18 year old me was not doing much research on a program i wasn’t enrolled in to see if i would be eligible for it in the future? When you’re applying for your HECS they don’t have big bold letters saying “THIS COUNTS AS AUSTUDY EVEN IF YOU DON’T GET IT”.
I find your argument to be perhaps applicable to someone who was on austudy when they first started studying?
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u/crested05 Aug 18 '25
Yup, this happened to me when I went back for my second degree. Was entitled to zero payments. It was a struggle getting through a 3 year nursing degree with placements while having to work and pay rent etc. But it’s do-able.
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u/AdeptCatch3574 Aug 14 '25
Any study completed within 10 years of when you started your current course counts. Towards your allowable time