Student Allowance obligations

If you are receiving Student Allowance, you will be responsible for keeping us informed of any changes you have.

These include:

  • Changes in your circumstances

    You must tell us about any changes in your circumstances. These include:

    • income changes for you and your partner
    • contact details change for you and your partner
    • where you live or who you live with changes
    • you or your partner go overseas

    The quickest and easiest way to tell us about any changes is through your MyStudyLink account.

    
    MyStudyLink

  • Withdrawing from a paper or course

    You must tell us straight away if you drop a paper or withdraw from a course.

    Withdrawing from a paper

    If you drop a paper, you may not be studying full-time anymore and may not be able to continue getting a student allowance. If you don’t tell us, you could be overpaid and have to pay the money back.

    Withdrawing from a course

    If you withdraw from your course, we have to stop your student allowance from the day you stop studying full-time.

  • Passing more than half your course

    You must have passed more than half of the last tertiary course that you got a Student Allowance for to qualify for it again. We'll confirm this with the Ministry of Education (MoE).

    What happens if you didn't pass

    You may still be able to get a Student Allowance if you've had something significant happen in your life which means you failed your course.

    If you failed your course for no acceptable reason, you won’t be able to get another Student Allowance until you either:

    • pass more than half of another approved course run by an approved education provider, without getting a Student Allowance (eg, you can get a Student Loan for the course but not a Student Allowance)
    • repay the full amount of Student Allowance you received for the course.
    Read more about performance for Student Allowance