Approval of a course as full-time or part-time for ABSTUDY 010-02080020

One of the general eligibility criteria for ABSTUDY is that the student must be enrolled in an approved course. For the purposes of ABSTUDY, courses can be approved as either full-time courses or as part-time courses. Determining whether a course is a full-time or part-time course depends on the structure of the course.

Students must be undertaking study in a course approved as a full-time course to be considered for full-time ABSTUDY entitlements. Students who are undertaking courses that are approved as part-time can only receive part-time ABSTUDY entitlements. Study load concessions cannot be applied to part-time courses.

Note: determining whether a course is a full-time or part-time course is completely unrelated to determining the level of study load a student is undertaking. A student may be undertaking all available hours in a part-time course, but enrolment in a part-time course can only qualify a student for part-time benefits.

Two part-time courses cannot be grouped to make one full-time course. The student is entitled to the benefits arising from each part-time award. Exceptions to this are:

• articulated courses, where two or more courses are linked together to form an overall qualification
• two associated courses where one merges with or leads into the other course e.g. a bridging course leading into a degree course, or a supplementary program studied concurrently with a degree course
• composite courses, also known as nested courses, where units from two or more different accredited courses that have the same course title recognised under the Australian Qualification Framework (AQF) are part of a coherent study sequence and lead to, or form part of, an overall qualification.