Student bonus - how it works

There are two ways students can qualify for the Training and Learning Bonus. Firstly if, on 3 February, they were a student or apprentice eligible for youth allowance, Austudy, Abstudy or various other schemes including sickness allowance and special benefit.
 
Secondly, if they are social security recipients who becomes eligible for the $208 education entry payment between the beginning of 2009 and 30 June 2010. The EdEP is available to recipients of various social security schemes – including Newstart, the disability support pension, various parenting and carer payments and others – who start studying approved secondary, vocational or higher education courses.
 
Gillard’s spokesperson confirmed that while students who received no social security benefits wouldn’t get the bonus, those who worked part-time would qualify for the tax bonus – for workers earning up to $100,000 a year – which also forms part of the stimulus package. So long as their part-time job nets them less than $80,000 a year, she added, the handout they receive will be the same amount of $950.
 
“And in some cases, students who are starting uni in March, for instance, are put on Newstart between finishing high school and starting their course – which means they’d be entitled to the training bonus. It’s been designed to have a very wide net.”
 
But the net won’t catch students who receive no benefits because they’re under 25 and their parents are too rich, and who don’t do any part-time work because they want to concentrate on their studies. Students working off the books could also miss out. NUS president David Barrow said those most likely to slip through the gaps would be first-year undergraduates without jobs.
 
But the situation could be far worse for higher degree students, according to Council of Postgraduate Associations president Nigel Palmer. He said many postgraduates would miss out even if they had part-time jobs, because postgraduate scholarships are tax-free. “To be eligible for the tax bonus you need to have a net tax liability,” Palmer explained.
 
This suggests that postgraduates without social security benefits will be excluded unless they earn more from their jobs than from their scholarships. Palmer estimated that over 110,000 postgraduate students would miss out on both the training and tax bonus.
 
Which means that in an age when working families reign supreme, a worker earning $100,000 can still receive a payout denied to a student earning next to nothing. JR
 
Go to www.treasurer.gov.au