FINANCIAL HARDSHIP

Sometimes, life will throw us a curveball, and it may become difficult for you to pay your course fee instalments following the normal schedule.  If you are experiencing financial hardship it is very important you don’t ignore your situation.

Financial hardship is defined as a major change to personal circumstances which affects you, or your households, ability in any way to earn enough income to cover essential living expenses and debts, or a contributing stressor which impacts you, or your households, ability to make future financial payments. It does not cover getting a refund on past payments.

If you are finding yourself struggling financially, we can offer flexibility for instalment payments and temporary assistance, such as an extension of time to pay or temporary altered payment arrangements. In rare circumstances, you may not expect your situation to improve in the foreseeable future and will instead require ongoing support over a longer period through a permanent reduction in instalment amounts, or a waiver of future fees.

Situations that may arise that could contribute to financial hardship include:

• Death of a major household income contributor
• Long term inability to work to earn sufficient income (more than 6 months)
• Household income reduced due to someone losing employment and unlikely to gain new employment in the immediate future (eg 3 months).
• Sudden drop in expected income, eg your hours of employment have been reduced unexpectedly and not expected to return to normal in the short term
• An increase in carer responsibilities for a dependent long term (eg over 6 months)
• Family breakdown or family violence
• Unexpected major natural disaster

Financial hardship is not:

• Short term illness or injury temporarily preventing you from working
• Changing your mind about the course or career path
• Mental health illness unless it prevents you from earning an income long term
• Losing your job if you have the ability to gain a new one in the near future (eg 3 months).

Any time you are aware that you are unable to pay an instalment, you must contact us before your next instalment is due or as soon as you are aware that an instalment has failed.

We may be able to edit or reschedule one or more payments if you give us as much notice as possible. We need at least 3 business days notice to edit a direct debit scheduled payment. If you have an immediate short term financial hardship that is not ongoing (e.g. an unexpected bill, car breakdown, vet visit) we can allow you to skip one instalment and move it to the end of your payment schedule to help you manage any short term financial difficulties. To arrange this you must call our admin team at least 3 days prior to the instalment being debited.

If you need a temporary or permanent change to your payment schedule, please complete the Financial Hardship Application. This can include changing the frequency or amount of your payments.

It is important to note, that if your payment schedule changes and your course fees are not fully paid at the time you complete your studies, no statement of attainment, qualification or certificate will be issued until your fees are paid in full.

Even with a changed payment schedule, you are still governed by the payment plan terms & conditions you signed at enrolment.

In some rare circumstances, we may allow a waiver of fees where paying future course fee instalments will cause further financial stress. Fee waivers are only approved when there is sufficient evidence that the student (or fee payer) has no capacity to pay the associated fees, even at a reduced rate. For most students, it is more appropriate to alter instalment amounts and schedules.

If your remaining course fees are waived, you will need to be withdrawn from the course. We may be able to issue you a statement of attainment for units you have completed as long as your fees paid to date cover any administration fees, resources and the unit costs.

Even if we approve a waiver of fees, there will be a minimum amount payable to cover the non-refundable components of the course, including administration and resource fees.

If you are yet to commence your intake, this is $495.00. If you have commenced your intake and have online access granted but have not commenced more than one unit, this will be $1,325.00. If you have commenced training in multiple units (2 or more), those units will still need to paid for, before we can grant a waiver of your remaining fees. Depending on the course you have enrolled in, the units range from $200-450 each.

Where you have paid more than the minimum fees payable based on your progress in the course, only future payments are waived and all fees paid to date are not refundable.

HOW TO APPLY FOR A WAIVER OF FEES OR REFUND

If you are unable to continue paying for your course, or wish to request an alteration to your instalment amounts and schedule, you will need to submit the Application for Financial Hardship form and upload all the required evidence (you must be logged into this website with your student email address to access the form).

You must attach supportive documentation for your claims. The form will guide you with what to include. Without sufficient supportive evidence for your claim for financial hardship, we will be unable to process your request.

Please allow 21 days for us to review your case and supply you with a decision and details on the next steps.

We may ask for further information to substantiate your application and associated claims and this must be provided for us to be able to fairly assess your request for a waiver of fees or alternative payments.

PRIVACY

All your submitted documentation will be held in the strictest confidence however you must be aware that if you are enrolled in an nationally accredited program, we may need to share the documentation with the RTO you are registered with for a decision to be made about your application.

DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE

Documentary evidence to support your situation will depend on your individual circumstances. Often you’ll need to provide multiple pieces of documentation to fully support your claims. This evidence may include (but not limited to):

• Death certificates
• Mortgage statement or default notices
• Bank account statements clearly showing income and expenditure
• Redundancy or employment termination notices
• Letter from doctor confirming inability to earn income due to disability, injury, illness or caring for sick family member
• Centrelink statements
• ATO Notice of Financial assessment for last financial year and copies of two latest payslips
• Eviction notice
• Overdue medical bills/medical expenses
• Pending disconnection of essential services (eg electricity)
• Letter from former employer confirming loss of employment
• Statement of your circumstances on a Statutory Declaration where external evidence is hard to supply (eg carer responsibilities and the impact on your studies).

If you’re living with your parent/s (or with a partner) and you’re being financially supported by them, including being jointly responsible for household expenses, you will be asked also provide evidence of your parent/s or partner’s income to support your claim of financial hardship.