Selected postgraduates gain income support

The list of masters by coursework programs whose students are able
to apply for youth allowance and Austudy was extended last week. The
new list adds 86 courses to the 312 approved last year. It now contains
almost 400 masters programs offered by 44 higher education providers,
in areas including education, law, engineering, architecture, planning,
business and many health-related areas.

The new provisions were initiated by the Howard Government and
implemented at the beginning of this year. However, eligibility is
tightly constrained. Research postgraduates and coursework doctoral
candidates don’t qualify. And coursework masters students don’t qualify
if their courses aren’t required for professional registration, or if
quicker alternatives are offered by their institutions.

Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations (CAPA) president
Nigel Palmer welcomed the additions to the list. “It’s a positive sign.
Opening up access to more programs enables access to income support for
more students.”

But Palmer pointed out that the list only meant students were
entitled to apply – it didn’t mean they’d automatically get it.
According to CAPA’s submission to the Bradley review, more coursework
postgraduates are knocked back than other types of students.

In any case, Palmer said, the new provisions were “tinkering around
the edges” of a broad equity problem. “Living expenses exist for
postgraduates whether or not they happen to be in particular programs.
They should abolish all course eligibility requirements. We convey our
sympathies to the government that they have to go through this
rigmarole of approving certain courses. Administratively it would be
much easier for them to not have to go through this process.”

Palmer said the Bradley review would have no credibility with
postgraduates if it didn’t address their income support needs. CAPA’s
submission estimated that in 2006 over 45,000 coursework postgraduates
and 20,000 research postgraduates had no access to income support
whatsoever.

The new income support provisions, albeit limited, will certainly be
welcomed by those they reach. A 2006 Universities Australia report
found that over a fifth of full-time coursework postgraduates were also
working full-time.