Academic Services

Student Contributions for Units of Study - 2007

Calculation of EFTSL values and Student Contributions for units of study

1. In all courses the standard student load for a year of study is 120 credit points.

2. The EFTSL value for a unit of study is equal to the unit credit points divided by the standard student load in a year (120 credit points). EFTSL is an equivalent full-time study load. Broadly, it is a measure of the size of the unit compared with a standard full-time study load. For example, if there are four equal-sized units in a full-year, then each would accrue 0.2500 EFTSL.

Example:

CHE1GEN is a first-year 15 credit point unit. In all courses this is divided by the standard student load (120cp). Therefore the EFTSL value for this unit is 15 divided by 120 = 0.1250 EFTSL.

3. La Trobe has largely standardized all single-award courses to 120 credit points per year. In all EFTSL calculations the standard value of 120 is used. There are however a small number of courses which have non-standard numbers of credit points, either fewer or greater. These can result in less than or more than 1.0 EFTSL in a year of study.

In addition there are several imbalanced courses with say 115, 125, 115, 125 credit points over four years. These result in EFTSL values slightly under and slightly over 1.0 in each of the four years

4. Students enrolled in double-degree courses often take more than a standard student load (120 credit points). For example students in a BA/BSc course require 4.5 years work (4.5 EFTSL), however, students are permitted to accelerate their courses to complete in 4.0 years. It should be noted that higher entry requirements are required, for students to have the capacity to accelerate.

Effective Full-Time Student Load (EFTSL) Calculator for a Unit

5. To calculate the Student Contribution for a unit

(a) Determine whether you are a

• Student who commenced a course in 2005 or later. See Table 1 – Student Contribution for a Place (1 EFTSL), students commencing in 2005 or later.

OR

• Student who is a pre-2005 student. Generally, this is a student who incurred a HECS liability in 2004 or earlier and has not discontinued the course nor completed the course. Often pre-2005 students who transfer between courses can retain their pre-2005 status until one course is completed. See Table 2 – Student Contribution for a Place (1 EFTSL), Pre-2005 Students.

OR

• Student who is a pre-1997 student. Generally, this is a student who commenced a course as a HECS-liable student before 1997 and has not completed the course. These students pay a flat student contribution rate of $3001 (1.0 EFTSL) for all units.

(b) Determine the Student Contribution Rate for each unit using the Table identified in 4(a). The Contribution Rate depends on the discipline of the unit and thus the contribution band in which it resides. For many units the discipline is obvious, for example, the unit Clinical Nursing is from the discipline Nursing. For other units the discipline is less obvious, however the discipline may often be determined from the first three characters of the unit code, for example, the unit Globalisation: The Rise of the Modern World , has a unit code of HIS1DEV. HIS represents History, which is a Humanities discipline.

(c) Calculate the Student Contribution for each unit by multiplying the EFTSL (calculated in point 2) by the Student Contribution Rate for a Place as determined in 5 (a) and (b).

Example:

CHE1GEN has an EFTSL value of 0.1250 (see example in point 2 above). A student commencing university in 2007 would have a student contribution for CHE1GEN of

0.1250 x $7118 = $889

NOTE: The contribution is always rounded down to a whole dollar amount.

Commonwealth Supported Place Student Contributions for 2007

Student Contribution Calculator

The amount charged will be rounded down to a whole dollar amount.

For related information, please visit the Department of Education, Science and Training

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