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Sharing information with students
You can help ensure students keep their payment by sharing information with them.
If they’re getting a payment, you can remind students to keep us updated if their circumstances change. This includes all the following:
- changes to their study load
- changes to their living arrangements
- starting or stopping paid work.
You can also let students know they can self-manage certain transactions online. They can use their Centrelink online account through myGov or the Express Plus Centrelink mobile app to:
- report employment income
- update address details
- request income statements
- claim an advance payment
- submit documents.
We have online guides to help.
Giving us information
There’s information you’ll need to give us about students to make sure they keep getting their payment. What information we need depends on what payment the student gets.
Students getting ABSTUDY
We are regularly in touch with you about your ABSTUDY students. Read about what information you need to give us to support your ABSTUDY students.
Students in the Assistance for Isolated Children scheme
Some students can get payments under the Assistance for Isolated Children scheme. If you have students getting Assistance for Isolated Children payments, there’s some information you need to give us.
We send enrolment checks and data matches which you must return to us. When we need specific information about enrolment or school circumstances, we’ll get in touch with either:
- you, as the school or boarding provider
- the applicant.
If we don’t get in touch with you, there’s no other information we need from you.
Students getting Youth Allowance
We sometimes pay Youth Allowance to students in secondary school.
If you have students at your school who are getting Youth Allowance, you won’t need to give us any information. We’ll work directly with the student, or their parent or guardian to get information.
Apprentices
Before we can pay an apprentice, you need to register them with the Australian Apprenticeships scheme. This is because we’ll need their current Commonwealth Registration number. We’ll normally get this after you’ve registered them through the Department of Education, Skills and Employment.
Tertiary students
As part of reporting requirements, tertiary education providers send student data to the Department of Education, Skills and Employment. Both Higher Education Loan Program and VET Student Loan providers need to report student data to government.
We get this data through the Tertiary Collection of Student Information service. We use the data to check with students if their study details are correct. If a student gets a payment from us and changes their study details, we may send them a letter. We’ll ask them to update their study details, so we can check they’re still eligible for a payment.
Read more about Centrelink data matching activities.