Tertiary education fees in Australia
Other domestic students are full fee-paying (non-Commonwealth supported) and do not receive direct government contribution to the cost of their education.
[1][2] Student fees for vocational education vary between jurisdictions, with some states implementing fee-free courses in some fields and all offering some form of government subsidised training.
[3] Funding responsibilities for student fee subsidies are agreed between state and territory governments and the Commonwealth under the National Skills Agreement which commenced at the start of 2024.
[4] Australian citizens (and in some cases overseas professionals completing bridging studies in order to be accredited permanent residents[5]) are able to obtain loans from the government under the Higher Education Loan Programme (HELP) which replaced the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS).
[7] In addition, qualified students may be entitled to Youth Allowance or Austudy Payment to assist them financially while they are studying.
Overseas students are charged fees for the full cost of their education and are ineligible for HELP loans, but may apply for international scholarships.
In 1967, the government created a category of Commonwealth-funded non-university tertiary institution, called College of Advanced Education (CAE), to provide cheaper & easier access to equivalent of bachelor's degrees.
], the Whitlam Labor government abolished university fees to make tertiary education in Australia more accessible to working and middle class Australians.
In 1989, the Hawke Labor government began gradually re-introducing fees for university study and setup the Higher Education Contributions Scheme (HECS).
[8][9][10] In 1996, the new Howard Coalition government, introduced tiers in the HECS fee structure (now called HECS-HELP).
An alternative option is FEE-HELP which provides eligible fee-paying students with a loan to cover their tertiary education fees.
Commonwealth supported places are available to citizens of Australia and New Zealand and Australian permanent residents.
[14] Only Australian citizens and permanent humanitarian visa holders were eligible for the up-front 10% HECS discount.
[16] For 2017 these are: Full fee places for Australian undergraduate students were phased out in 2009 under reforms made by the Gillard government.
Most postgraduate courses do not have Commonwealth supported places available and therefore, all these students are full fee-paying.
OS-HELP is a loan scheme to assist some undergraduate domestic students to undertake some, but not all, of their course of study overseas.
Any HELP debt incurred on second semester courses (usually determined in June) will not be subject to indexation until the next year.
