Course costs
As an undergraduate student you will be offered a Commonwealth Supported Place (CSP). This means you pay part of the cost of your degree and the Commonwealth Government pays the rest. The good news is that you don’t have to pay any of this cost upfront.
All students are required to pay a small annual general service fee. Other expenses you should plan for are textbooks and living expenses, including transport.
Commonwealth Supported Places
You are eligible to apply for a Commonwealth Supported Place (CSP) if you are an Australian citizen, New Zealand citizen, or permanent resident of Australia. Read more information on CSP eligibility.
Under the CSP arrangement students have to make a contribution to the cost of their degree. Read more about student contribution rates for 2012.
Australian citizens or holders of a permanent humanitarian visa have the choice of three options for paying their student contribution.
HECS-HELP loan
With a HECS-HELP loan you only start paying for your course, through tax deductions, when your income reaches a certain level. This earnings threshold is set by the government.
If you are a New Zealand citizen, or hold an Australian permanent resident visa (other than a permanent humanitarian visa), you are not eligible for HECS-HELP loans and must pay your student contribution up-front each semester, without discount.
Full upfront payment
You can choose to pay for your course upfront at the start of each semester. If you do so before the census date you will receive a 20 per cent discount.
Partial upfront payment
You can choose to pay some of your course upfront and take a HECS-HELP loan for the remainder. Payments you make over $500 will receive a 20 per cent discount.
For example, if you choose to pay $1000 of your course costs at the start of a semester, you will receive a 20 per cent discount on this amount. This means it will only cost you $800 to bring your overall student contribution down by $1000.
Contribution Bands
With CSP, you are placed into one of four contribution bands depending on the course you are enrolled in. This sets roughly how much your course costs per year. Of course, you might take some subjects from other disciplines (possibly in different contribution bands) and therefore this will affect the total cost of your degree.
| Band | Annual Student Contribution 2013 (full-time) |
Examples of disciplines |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Up to $5868 | humanities, behavioural science, social studies, clinical psychology, foreign languages, visual and performing arts, education, nursing |
| 2 | Up to $8363 | mathematics, statistics, science, computing, built environment, allied health, engineering, surveying, agriculture |
| 3 | Up to $9792 | law, accounting, administration, economics, commerce, dentistry, medicine, veterinary science |
As an example, a student enrolled in a Bachelor of Science would take mostly science subjects, which are less expensive than others because the government identifies science as a national priority discipline. However, this student might also take electives from disciplines in Bands 1, 2 and 3, which are more expensive. As a result their annual student contribution could be higher than $4355 even though this is listed as the annual contribution for science.
Find out more about Commonwealth Supported Places.
