Providing assistance where needed
Support to study
Steph's parents earn a combined income of $40,000 a year. With the support of her teachers, she was able to overcome the barrier of limited resources in the home to achieve the school results she needed to study engineering.
Because her parents earn more than $32,800 a year, she was previously unable to receive the full rate of Youth Allowance. This made it difficult for Steph's parents to support her at home when her expenses increased as a result of her study commitments, meaning that Steph had to cut back on her study commitments to increase her part‑time working hours.
Now that the Parental Income Test threshold has been raised to over $42,000, as a full‑time student Steph will qualify for the full amount of Youth Allowance.
Reforms to student income support
The first phase of reforms will be implemented on 1 January 2010 including:
- lifting the Parental Income Test for Youth Allowance (currently $32,800) to align it with the FTB Part A income test (currently $42,559), benefiting around 102,000 students
- a new Student Start‑up Scholarship, worth $2,254 p.a. for all students on income support at university, benefiting around 146,000 students
- a new Relocation Scholarship, worth $4,000 in the first year and $1,000 in each year afterwards, for eligible university students who have to move away from the family home to do their course
- exempting equity and merit‑based Scholarships from means testing for the purposes of student income support.
Other reforms will be progressively implemented by 2012 including:
- increasing the Personal Income Test threshold from $236 to $400 from 2011, allowing around 62,000 students to earn more without losing benefits
- reducing the age of independence from 25 to 22 years, by 2012
- extending income support to all eligible students undertaking course work Masters programs.
