Commencing or returning to study 102-07010000

Customers returning to or commencing full-time study may be eligible for one of the following payments:

• An allowance under the ABSTUDY scheme if the customer is indigenous
• Austudy if the customer is 25 years of age and over
• Youth Allowance (YA) (student) if the customer is under 25 years of age
• Pensioner Education Supplement (PES) or ABSTUDY PES (if they are indigenous) if they are receiving a qualifying payment
• From 1 January 2019, customers will automatically receive a Health Care Card (HCC) when they transfer to YA, Austudy or ABSTUDY Living allowance as a student or Australian Apprentice. If they transfer from a payment that attracted a Pensioner Concession Card, the concession card will be cancelled on the transfer date. Customers transferring from Youth Allowance (job seeker) will keep their current HCC card and will receive a new card on its expiry

When a job seeker returns to or commences full time study, they may either:

• have the course approved under the short course guidelines, or
• test their eligibility for ABSTUDY, Austudy or YA (student) payment, or
• qualify for PES if they are a single principal carer and meet all other PES qualifications, or
• have their income support cancelled if they do not fit into any of the above categories

Job seekers who are studying part-time may be eligible for JSP if they meet the normal JSP qualification criteria and the course they are studying is deemed to be part-time by the educational institution they are enrolled with. These job seekers must show a commitment to seeking suitable paid work to satisfy their mutual obligation requirements.

Customers in receipt of Age Pension can continue to receive payments on return to full-time or part-time study. However, if the customer chooses, they can transfer to Austudy where appropriate.

Customers who are the principal carer of a dependent child with participation requirements, such as Parenting Payment (PP) or JSP, satisfy their participation obligations if they commence full-time study, or have a combination of part-time study and job search or an approved activity that equals a total of 15 hours participation each week, or 30 hours in the fortnight.

JSP and YA job seekers who have been assessed by a Job Capacity Assessment (JCA) as having a partial capacity to work, and transfer from transitional Disability Support Pension (DSP) are able to continue to study in the same course, which they commenced while on DSP, either on a full-time or part-time basis.

DSP customers who commence or continue to undertake study or training may remain qualified for DSP if they have a continuing inability to work (CITW).

To meet CITW criteria, a DSP customer must:

• be prevented, because of their impairment/s, from doing any work in open employment within the next 2 years, and
• be unlikely, because of their impairment/s, to be able to work for 15 hours per week within the next 2 years as a result of undertaking educational, vocational or on the job training

Consider the following:

• Would the customer benefit from study or training within 2 years?
• Is the study or training full-time?

If the answer is no to these questions, this may indicate the customer meets CITW criteria and may be medically eligible for DSP. For example, the customer is not studying full-time and there will be no benefit within 2 years.

If the customer is studying without any modifications due to their disability, they may not have a CITW.

Grandfathered DSP customers (qualified pre 1 July 2012) may have a CITW of 30 hours per week.

Note: an assessment of CITW is not necessary if the customer has qualified for DSP on manifest grounds. See Granting Disability Support Pension (DSP) (manifest).

Some customers undertaking part-time or full-time study may be eligible to receive the Education Entry Payment (EdEP). The EdEP helps participants with the up-front costs of education and training. See Education Entry Payment (EdEP) for details on eligibility and coding requirements.

If a customer has unused working credits, they may be eligible to restore these credits to their new Student Income Bank or working credit balance within 12 months. Student Income Bank credits can only be restored to a new working credit balance.