Eligibility for Relocation Scholarship
The Relocation Scholarship is an annual payment for eligible people on Youth Allowance and ABSTUDY Living Allowance who have to live away from the family home to study.
To qualify for this payment, you must:
- be studying full-time in an approved scholarship course
- be in receipt of ABSTUDY Living Allowance or Youth Allowance as a full-time student, and either
- receive at least $1 of Youth Allowance basic benefit or $1 of ABSTUDY Living Allowance in the fortnight in which a scholarship is payable (i.e. you must be receiving more than just the Pharmaceutical Allowance and Rent Assistance component of Youth Allowance or ABSTUDY)
- be a dependent person who has to live away from home to study, or
- meet specific scholarship independence criteria
Note: You will not be able to receive a scholarship in the scheduled pay period if you do not qualify for at least $1 of Youth Allowance basic benefit or ABSTUDY Living Allowance within that pay period. If you are eligible, you will be able to receive the scholarship in the next pay period in which you receive at least $1 of basic benefit or ABSTUDY Living Allowance.
When you are NOT eligible
You will not be eligible for this scholarship if:
- you also receive, or qualify for, a Commonwealth Accommodation Scholarship or a Relocation Scholarship paid by the Department of Veterans' Affairs
- you do not start (or resume) full-time study within 35 days of qualifying for the scholarship
- you do not undertake full-time study for at least 35 days after qualifying for the scholarship
- there is less than 35 days left in the year
- you have received the ABSTUDY Residential Costs Option in the current study year
- you have reached the age of independence and have not previously received a Relocation Scholarship under one of the specific scholarship independence criteria or have not previously received a Commonwealth Accommodation Scholarship or
- you are independent because you have supported yourself through employment
Note: The Relocation Scholarship is no longer payable to you once you turn 25 years old, or if you stop doing the course you started before you turned 25, whichever is later.
Specific scholarship independence criteria
The specific independence criteria for the Relocation Scholarship are:
- unable to live at home
- orphan
- parents cannot exercise responsibility
- refugee (Youth Allowance only)
- in state care (Youth Allowance only)
- specially disadvantaged (safety net criteria)
- have (or have had) a dependent child
- currently have care or custody of another person’s child (ABSTUDY only)
- tribal initiation (ABSTUDY only), or
- have been in lawful custody for a cumulative period of six months or more (AUSTUDY only)\have returned to live in an Indigenous community after having been adopted or fostered by a non-Indigenous family for more than two years (ABSTUDY only).