Making Ends Meet
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday December 28, 2002
How to ease financial pressures at uni. By Perrie Croshaw.
Once you've got into the university course of your choice, you'll need to decide how to support yourself while studying. Each university or tertiary institution has a student advisory office which provides information about fees, whether you might qualify for a loan, how to apply for a scholarship and how to sign up for paid work experience.
Budgeting
You may be able to pay your tuition costs using HECS (Higher Education Contribution Scheme), but you will need money to cover living expenses such as rent, electricity, telephone, gas, health insurance, food, transport, entertainment, hobbies and sport and, if you have a family, child care, school fees and clothing.
To help get your finances sorted, the first step is to download the weekly/fortnightly budget sheet and annual expenditure planner from the University of Tasmania's student finance website at http://student.admin.utas.edu.au/services/finances/budget.html.
Filling this in will help determine what you need to spend and therefore the level of income needed to support yourself throughout the year.
Fees
In addition to tuition fees, you may have to pay a one-off entrance or enrolment fee. Then there is a service fee or union fee of between $200 and $300. This is a compulsory annual cost which pays for the facilities on campus. Students with financial difficulties can apply for assistance in the form of deferred or staged payments of these fees.
Student loans
Each university offers short-term loans to students who can demonstrate hardship. These loans can be used to pay for textbooks or cover rental bonds, but they cannot be used to pay tuition fees.
For example, UTS offers students eligible for help (they must prove they have been disadvantaged for a long time) financial assistance grants of between $100 and $450. Other financial support includes: interest-free student loans of up to $500 to cover rental bonds, textbooks etc; computer loans of up to $1500; assistance with budgeting, financial counselling, student tax and consumer rights.
Work
Check out campus noticeboards or contact the student information office to ask about casual, part-time or full-time work.
Tom Kennedy, 22, who has just finished his three-year bachelor of commerce at Sydney University, worked for the Commonwealth Bank during his summer vacation last year. He is doing a return engagement this year, working on a student banking options program, before returning to uni next year to do honours.
"It's great experience," he says, "because it's a big project management job. I'm the only one in the target age group, so often in meetings other people turn to me and ask what I think of this product or concept. It's great to be able to sit in meetings and fire answers back straight away."
Kennedy found out about this vacation work at the university's careers fair.
"Last summer there were 30 vacation students in here," he says, "and we've all kept in contact by having drinks on Friday night. It's a wonderful little network."
Scholarships
For details of more than $10 million worth of tertiary scholarships that are available throughout Australia plus a guide on how to prepare applications, see Scholarships Australia, published by New Hobsons Press (www.nhpress.com.au).
Or to find scholarships online at the individual universities, go to:
Sydney University http://heifer.ucc.usyd.edu.au/scholarships
University of NSW www.scholarships.unsw.edu.au
Wollongong University www.uow.edu.au/student/scholarship
/scholarship.html
University of Technology, Sydney www.uts.edu.au/study/ugscholarships
.html
Macquarie University www.mq.edu.au/postgrad/awards.htm
Newcastle University www.newcastle.edu.au/study/scholarships/index.html
© 2002 Sydney Morning Herald
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