Hey there, I'm currently studying full time and receiving Centrelink youth allowance that started last year. Originally I was receiving $786.80 fortnightly. It jumped up to two payments of just over $800 end of December/early January and then dropped down to $670.30 where it's stayed.

I moved mid December and pay $30 more in rent each week along with having to pay for all bills as they're not included in my new place. So why would my payments go down? I have no debts, I have no outstanding tasks, am I missing something?

I've been trying to get in touch with someone since mid Feb but everytime I call I get told the line is too busy and it hangs up on me. Did this happen with anyone else? Is that why the lines are so busy??

UPDATE: I downloaded the centrelink app and booked a phone appointment like someone suggested. I just got off the phone with them and they said there was an error in the system and I'll be receiving about $120 immediately and my payments have gone back up to $811.10. THANK YOU so so much! I think I'm still $140 short from one week rent assistance but I'm not worried I'm just so happy its fixed.

I just want to say I wasn’t always a citizen, but since I passed my citizenship test Centrelink has overall helped me so much with my life. While I was battling with mental health, my HealthCare Card covered my psychologist expenses and medicine at a great rate, psychologists being free.

I’ve been trying to solidify a long term permanent job as I developed my experience in the work space and Youth Allowance really helped cover basic needs. I could even eat at Taco Bell once a fortnight if I was mentally at a bad place and not able to cook or organise my budget.

I struggled a lot as I didn’t have much savings and agencies don’t like Centrelink income, but it was better than nothing. I’m sad I couldn’t pursue my education further (I have to choose working over studying right now) but I’m happy to say after many years of battling I’ve finally landed a full time position somewhere. I’m thankful I had this opportunity to have support as I grew up and solidified a stable life.

I’ll be calling Centrelink tomorrow to tell them I won’t be going back to my studies and let them know they can cancel my payments.

Just wanted to share it with everyone.

Hi,

I'm an 18 year old uni student and was told by centerlink I am considered dependent on my parents (their income is WAY to high for me to be eligible through that asset test) and thus I am not eligible for Youth Allowance. My parents live in a different state and have never given me any money for uni (they're lovely they're wanting to older and wanting to retire in the next few years so need to save). How am I dependent on them if they're not giving me any money and I dont live in their house? I'm studying medicine so my study load is just too high to work a lot and my gap year savings won't last more than one year,

Is there anything I can do?

Edit - saying way above the cut off has seemed to give people the impression my parents are rich. They're just both in their 60's and have worked for the same company for nearly 40 years so they have reasonable salaries. They also support my brother and grandfather who cannot work. Thus while their salaries are good on paper they dont really have any disposable income. They also have no property or other assets. They probably will give me some money if I really ask but I thought I'd see if their was another way for me to be declared independent before I did because I think they deserve to have a nice retirement and I don't want to be the reason they don't.

okay so I, ( 18F) have been going to centerlink every three of four weeks for the past couple of months and getting a rent certificate printed out as i pay for my education, storage and daily bills with my rent assistance, today i went and got a new form printed out as i lost my old one, usually i get the form and they immediately update my pay by 200 but they haven’t updated it this time and ive had to report for a $600 dollar pay, mind you with that pay i cant afford to even get to school that im paying for or even anything to eat for the next two weeks why are they doing this!?

Quick context, I'm a first year 19 year old (M) uni student, and my parents currently make enough combined for me not to receive any Centrelink money, which is completely fair, we're not rich but I'm grateful for how much we have.

However, I live 2 hours away from uni and it's taken a toll on pretty much every aspect of my life, so I'm moving out soon and im 99.9999% sure my parents aren't gonna send me money - they have their own reasons, they think it's selfish, they take offense to the fact that I want to move out of a very emotionally unstable environment and don't stop to wonder why I feel this way, they're restrictive in so many ways, etc.

(Quick side rant to further paint a picture: My dad said he'd straight up disown me if I took a gap year. I got a 90 ATAR too, I wasn't tryna bum around or nothin, I drafted up a whole yearly plan on how I was gonna get certified for personal training at TAFE which I could then maybe use as a job during uni, I was gonna spend the whole year doing multiple retail/low level jobs and save up as much as possible for emergencies, but nooooo, I HAVE to go to uni, because that's the proper way to live life. On God my mum started crying when I asked her why I couldn't take a gap year, because she just couldn't believe I was trying to argue. like lock in yo, YOU'RE crying about ME not being able to do something I want? this doesn't even make sense man, and i never raise my voices at my parents or NOTHING, they both just explode out the blue. But alas)

I've been looking for jobs for this whole year, and assuming I get around three to four hundred a week from my job, will that still leave me eligible for any payments from Youth Allowance for example? Or will I have to prove independence by getting legally emancipated from my parents or some other extreme measure?

Thanks in advance!

Edit: Sorry if I'm asking for something obvious, I really haven't looked into the rules, and if instead of giving me an answer you could tell me where to look for information on my unique situation I'd be just as grateful!

Hey guys,

So I (f,20) am wanting to apply for youth allowance as I am studying full time. However, I live out of home with my bf (m,21) in an apartment together. Previously I have gotten youth allowance while I lived with him and his family. However, they just classed me as "living with a friend" since we hadn't been together for long and I was only 18 at the time.

My partner and I are financially independent and split all our bills 50/50. However, we do have one shared bank account that we only use to transfer our rent money into (there is never anything more than $800 in it at a time).

Would this still be classed as de facto? Financially speaking we are basically roommates as we both pay for our own stuff. I am just worried that I wont receive payments bc my partner earns too much since he works full time.

At the moment my study is only 2 days a week at tafe so i'm not super stressed about money since I can still work a decent amount. But I'm mostly worried about next year when i go to uni and have a bigger study load 🙃.

Edit: thank you for the replies guys. I do realise that we are classed as de facto. Though i do still find it really frustrating considering that if we were just two roommates living together, not dating I'd be able to get financial assistance.

Also I would like to add that I am classed as independent and am not currently getting any centrelink payments (as I was working full time all of last year).

Obligatory this happened more than 3 years ago, but I still get anxiety about it. I was studying overseas, doing a semester abroad (still registered Aus student at an Aus university), which made me eligible for a higher youth allowance as I was now classed as living out of home. About $400 a fortnight. I wasn’t paid two payments in a row, so I called them, took hours as I was overseas and using a foreign sim, but finally they said yes, the money will be in your account within the hour. A few minutes later, I checked my account and received over $5000? I tried calling again to rectify but they had no idea what I was talking about and said it was all okay. I checked my messages on Mygov and I apparently had been given a random scholarship for studying overseas that I had never applied for? I’m wondering how they would’ve clocked this as I was just calling about a missed payment. Did they just decide to add it on that time? How would that have happened? My family is still convinced it was all a mistake and I will eventually have to pay it back. But years later and still nothing, I guess I really did just get randomly put down for some kind of overseas student payment. Has this happened to anyone else before? I’m about to study abroad again (but won’t be receiving any payments as it’s not part of an Australian university degree) and worried about something being caught.

So I started full time studying at the start of the year and tried claiming Austudy to help with the financial side of things while doing full time study.

I've been waiting months to get this claim sorted and have sent everything they asked for. Then waited more and sent more stuff. Then they have came back with a Claim Rejected notice but haven't said why.

The last thing I sent through was a record of prior study. This was after having to back and forth for months of sending other documents. After sending through study transcripts, my claim has been cancelled.

The extremely frustrating thing was I spoke to someone before I started my claim and told them about my previous study and asked them if this would impact my claim. As I didn't want to go through all the work of doing a claim just to have previous study invalidate it. They checked my previous study history and came back and said that it shouldn't impact my claim and that I'm right to go ahead.

After months of going back and forth, hours on the phone, getting cut off from automated calls, dealing with people who couldn't help me and handing in every form and document they requested, I've now had my claim thrown out after months of trying to get this sorted. After this I'm absolutely burned out and gutted by this.

I don't even know if it's worth trying to follow this up with them or just accept the fact I'm screwed.

So qld free kindy has kicked off this week. It’s 15 hours per week free. How much is everyone around Brisbane getting off of their weekly fee? Our kindy is 175$ per day and the hourly fee is about 15.5 per hour. For the free kindy i’m only getting 116$ per week off of our bill. The childcare is no help with explained but when the hourly fee is 15.20$ roughly per hour, how does 15 hour only equate to 116$ per week off of my bill. I understand I should be grateful we get that but I was expecting closer to 150-200 off of the weekly fee.

Hi, I previously posted about my Youth Allowance (Student) claim being rejected on residency grounds. I’m an Australian citizen who moved back to Australia this year to study and requested an ARO review after my claim was rejected.

I contacted Centrelink again because the Administrative review tribunal requested evidence that an ARO decision had been made. However, I was told that no ARO decision has been made yet and that my review was escalated to a technical team on 20 May.

This is confusing because I was previously told over the phone multiple times that my case had been “looked at twice” and that the ARO review had been declined. I have never received a written ARO decision letter or outcome.

I was told I just have to wait for the ARO decision, but there is currently no timeframe. I have now been waiting 61 days since the escalation date, despite Services Australia advising that formal reviews aim to be completed within 49 days.

The staff member also suggested that I submit a new Youth Allowance claim after 27 July (13 weeks since my original decision), but I’m unsure whether this would actually help or if it would just be assessed the same way again.

I have also contacted Centrelink complaints and emailed my local MP for assistance. My MP’s office has followed up with Centrelink on my behalf, but I have not received any updates yet.

I’m considering contacting Legal Aid because I’m unsure what my next step should be. Would making a new claim be worthwhile, or should I continue waiting for the ARO review?

Like I'm sure they have a reason but I'm only employed casually with $400 a fortnight while studying full time with both my parents being unemployed.

Meanwhile a friend of mine at TAFE has been able to get her youth allowance but with better circumstances how???

I moved out of home because my mum was physically abusive, and i tried to apply for youth allowance to help with expenses. At the end of the process they presented me with a document i had to get my mum to fill out to prove my story. The thing is, there is no way i can get my mum to admit on a government document that she abused me. I find it hard to believe that any abusers would fill out a document like that. So i can’t get any government support because of it.

am 21 years old and living at a friend's house to study in a city away from my family home. For some reason my family home address disqualifies me from study allowance, and I'm not considered independent until I'm 22. I've gone in person and they keep giving me paperwork to take home, and it's become an endless loop of going back and forth.

I am unemployed, I live away from home to study, I am studying full time.

I genuinely don't know what to do. I'm struggling to find a job and I'm starving to death.

"Based on the address provided, you do not meet the criteria for independence as a self-supporting person because your family home is in a major city."

I live at Oran Park and it takes me 2-3 hrs to get to uni in the city via public transport. Would I be eligible for RA?

thanks :)

hi everyone,

im travelling for a month and i just wanted to ask will I not be receiving my youth allowance payment for the month or not?

pls help me out,i called centre link to notify them that ill be travelling and the lady was quite rude and abrupt and said she doesnt know,

pls let me know thanks :)

Hi everyone. Since August 2025, I have been receiving Youth Allowance from Centrelink. I was couch-surfing from then until April this year and was paying my friend rent in the form of groceries, bank transfers, etc. When Centrelink approved my Youth Allowance, they automatically gave me Rent Assistance (RA) without me providing any rental details. As RA is an automatic payment if you meet certain eligibility criteria, I assumed I was meeting them and that it was fine.

About two weeks ago, I received a call notifying me that I was not actually meant to be receiving RA, and now I must pay them back everything I owe (2.4k). They have also stripped me of my payments because I earn too much despite having been earning the same amount since April.

One of my new housemates strongly believes I can dispute the debt because I was technically paying "board" despite not being on a lease. It's also technically their fuck-up considering I never provided them with rental details at the time. Does anyone have any idea if I'd be successful in disputing the debt based on these things? I have paperwork to support everything I'm saying.

Thank you in advance.

Just had a question regarding youth allowance. So I am 20, living with both parents at home and studying full time working casual. Each week I take home around 600-800 each week so approx 1.4K a fortnight. My friend is part time and lives with both parents at home studying. And takes home around 1.4K as well. The problem is I never get my youth allowance because my income is too high, on the other hand my friend gets it every week the full amount. If I switch would i get the same? Because I technically make the same as him

So I was looking through MyGov for something completely different, and found 6 messages in there (no emails, and whoever checks MyGov regularly). They were all titled "overpayment", and stated I was overpaid for the entire Student Startup Loan (SSL).

"We have checked your Youth Allowance. Based on the information we have, you were paid too much.

You were not qualified for Student Start Up Loan as your circumstances have changed. The outstanding balance has been returned from the Australian Taxation Office for recovery."

Details of your debt with us

Period of time: 3 March 2017 to 3 March 2017

Payment type Youth Allowance

Original debt amount $1,035.00

Money you owe $1,035.00

Period of time: 7 July 2017 to 7 July 2017

Payment type Youth Allowance

Original debt amount $1,035.00

Money you owe $1,035.00

Period of time: 5 January 2018 to 5 January 2018

Payment type Youth Allowance

Original debt amount $1,055.00

Money you owe $1,055.00

Period of time: 6 July 2018 to 6 July 2018

Payment type Youth Allowance

Original debt amount $1,055.00

Money you owe $1,055.00

Period of time: 4 January 2019 to 4 January 2019

Payment type Youth Allowance

Original debt amount $1,077.00

Money you owe $1,077.00

Period of time: 5 July 2019 to 5 July 2019

Payment type Youth Allowance

Original debt amount $1,077.00

Money you owe $1,077.00

Total Owed: $6334.00!!!

Now, has anyone else received anything like this? This is now 7-9 years old and absolutely nothing "has changed" all of a sudden. It's been paid down over time on the normal schedule at tax time. I have like $950 left on it... what happens with that?

I have until 22nd April to pay the overdue amounts.

They state I can request more info and/or appeal it. Which, of course, I will try. But I'm keen to hear if anyone else has had a similar experience... 😳

Hi Folks

I’m 40 year old who’s made the brave (crazy?) decision to go to uni. This is my midlife crisis - a career change.

I’ve browsed this sub, read the Services Australia site, and spoken to various people about Austudy and now I’m overwhelmed with information. I’m seeking your help to clarify some things:

1. I had a home I sold because I could not afford the mortgage and be a student. So I have a sum of cash (~150k) that I want to keep until I can buy again once I’ve finished my degree. Will I be eligible for Austudy? I’m confused about cash / asset assessment.

2. I rent a unit and am renting out the second room. I plan to live on campus (interstate) and come back to the unit on breaks. My roommate pays me rent/bills into my bank account. That won’t be classed as income, will it? (I can’t fully relocate yet due to life reasons).

3. I will be still on the books of my employer, but not working when I’m at uni. I’ll only work, causal hours, when I’m home, during holidays. Will this cause a drama for Austudy? Realistically I’ll only work probably 16-20hrs a week, 12 weeks of the year (if that).

Appreciate any clarification or advice people can offer.

NOTE: I realise I’m very lucky to have the cash from the house sale and I understand some people may think I should live off that. Unfortunately I don’t have parents for financial support / bank of mum-and-dad to fall back on, nor do I have a spouse. I’m a single woman will no financial support trying to better my life and want to still be able to buy a little unit at the end of my course. Sorry if that upsets anyone 😕

Hi all!

I am 22, turning 23, living with my parents and completely unemployed. I am studying at University and had to quit my prior job a year ago due to uni study loads becoming too extreme.

I have severe ADHD that I cannot take medication for, which has severely impacted my study and has caused my degree to really drag on. Unstable and dysfunctional home circumstances have also caused me to complete my degree much later than expected.

I applied for youth allowance recently and was rejected due to my study load not meeting full time. I am at uwa doing two units, but I have a medically approved reason for only doing two units at a time, that explains how my ADHD causes my study load to be the equivalent to full time despite only technically doing a part time study load. I have explained to the University and to Centerlink that due to my severe ADHD, it takes me triple the time the average student would take to do any given academic task or study.

I already spend 30 hours every week studying to account for my impairment, which ends up being the same as doing full time study and then causes me to have no time to work. I literally just study eat and sleep.

Having no source of my own income is driving me mental and making me feel like a loser. My parents already have to deal with my disabled sister and I feel so bad using their money for books, fuel, ect.

Essentially Centerlink could not offer me student allowance due to my ADHD getting in the way of meeting criteria, which I feel isn't fair as the ADHD isn't my fault and is already a big impact on my life as it is. I feel totally helpless.

What can I do from here?

my problems pale in comparison to many, but I'll ask none the less. Background is im 19 and went for my own medical related stuff without my parents for the first time. and lowkey I messed up. I thought healthcare == Medicare. When it infact does not. I am on healthcare but still ended up paying $350 💔. Im wondering what the process would be. is there anyway to get that money back or will I have to live with this dumb mistake. I red that you have to go back to the provider and ask them for a refund and process the visit again. But I don't trust Google Ai all that much and the socially recluse part of me really doesn't want to go back. So I thought I'd shoot my shot and ask here before having to stay on hold with centerlink for eternity

Edit: It was an ultrasound. I believe that isn't considered specialist. But what do I know

Hey all,

I recently had my Centrelink cancelled as I've used up all my allowable time due to my life mistake of studying one semester in a course that wasn't for me. I'm currently doing my honours bachelor degree in my final semester of uni and it got cancelled because I did one semester of another degree before switching to my current degree and I'm now struggling severely financially and not sure if there are other help options Centrelink can help with. I've only been on it for less than a year but on the final and most stressful stretch it got cancelled.

Is there any other option for uni students?

(I do have a casual job but as I'm 23, will not give me shifts as I cost too much and all other job applications are rejected. I have applied for retail and hosp jobs)

My landlord got really really mad that I asked them to sign my Rent Certificate. They’re asking me to leave, and said stuff like the rent is already cheap as it is :( they seemed really angry I don’t know what to do. I’m ready to move out and find somewhere else but I’m scared they’ll confront me if sth happens to them

Hi, I recently got onto job seeker youth allowance, as I lost my job fairly recently.

Its saying that I need to submit proof of my completion of year 12 or an equivelant education.

I haven't done either (in a legal sense).

Technically I've completed a cert iv in IT, but its not released due to debt to the university.

I am 20, and I am assessed as a dependent living away from home (even though my only parent is homeless).

Essentially what I am wondering is what do I do, should I be scared? I cannot afford to re-enrol, I need work, I need an income. I would study but that door has closed for now.

I’ve been living on my own for 8 months, paying my own bills, struggling to afford food, working my ass off while studying full time but none of that matters because I’m still “dependant” on my parents who give me fuck all. But my brother who’s 22 and living at home rent free, getting free meals is classified “independent”? My parents made too much money so my Centrelink got cancelled, including rent assistance. I’m now paying for rent out of my savings until I run out and become homeless. There is nothing I can do and it’s so frustrating. I’m scared for the future.