Limits of assistance

There may be limits on the number of courses you can get your payment for. We call this limits of assistance. If you exceed your limit, your payment will stop.

Limits of assistance apply to following courses:

• Statement of Attainment
• Certificate levels 1 and 2
• Bachelor, and Masters or Doctorate.

What the limits are

The limits of ABSTUDY Living Allowance or ABSTUDY Pensioner Education Supplement assistance you can get depend on your level of study.

We’ll pay the allowance or supplement for 4 years of study for any combination of the following:

• Statement of Attainment
• Certificate 1
• Certificate 2.

We’ll also pay them for one of the following completed degrees:

• Undergraduate Bachelor degree, including Honours, Masters qualifying years, combined degrees and prerequisite studies
• equivalent amount of study at that level.

And we’ll pay them for 2 of the following completed degrees:

• Masters only
• Doctorate only
• or a combination of 1 Masters and 1 Doctorate
• equivalent amount of study at that level.

For example, Emilie has completed a Bachelor of Education and got ABSTUDY Living Allowance while she studied. She’s about to start another undergraduate degree, Bachelor of Social Work. She can’t get ABSTUDY Living Allowance for this degree. This is because she’s already completed a Bachelor degree that she got ABSTUDY Living Allowance for.

There are also limits on how long you can get your payment for, which we call reasonable time.

How we check your limit

We check your limits of assistance at the start of your course. We do this to work out your limits.

We also check if any of your previous study counts towards your limit.

We then check your limits at the start of each year you’re getting a payment.

If you’ve exceeded your limits, your payment will stop.

If you haven’t, your payment will continue until the end of the year. This includes if you reach your limits later within that year.

When previous study doesn’t count

In certain circumstances, your previous study doesn’t count. This may include study we didn’t pay you for or study you did in the past.

When working out your limits of assistance, we don’t include either of the following:

• study periods where we didn’t pay you ABSTUDY Living Allowance or ABSTUDY Pensioner Education Supplement
• studies you’ve done more than 10 years ago.

When circumstances are beyond your control

We may grant an extension if you can’t complete your study within your limits of assistance because of circumstances beyond your control.

You may get an extension for up to one year for any of the following reasons. You:

• have or have had a disability, illness or other medical condition
• have suffered family trauma
• have experienced a natural disaster
• had to move and repeat part of a course, or start again, because of education institution rules
• had to care for a family member
• have something else that stops you completing your study within the reasonable time.

To get an extension, you may need to provide evidence. This can be a medical certificate or you can ask for a statement from your education institution.