MEDIA RELEASE: CAPA Calls For Expansion of Commonwealth Prac Payment Eligibility

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Feb 2025

5^th February 2025 – The Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations (CAPA) lauds the recent announcement by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese committing to an additional $1.7 billion to Australia’s public hospital funding. However, CAPA believes that investment in the future medical, veterinary science and allied health workforce is critical to meeting the future health care system demands.

With the workforce demand in the health sector will increase by 14.9 per cent over the next five years, demand for rural general physicians is expected to grow by 58% by 2031, and 20 allied health occupations in national shortage: Australia desperately needs to train the next generation of healthcare professionals.

This training takes the form of placements. However, placements for these students are full-time, and unpaid, Averaging 10 weeks and 901 hours for Allied Health students.

“Students on placements can sometimes undertake hundreds of hours of unpaid placements. This limits their capacity to maintain external paid employment to support their cost-of-living,” said CAPA National President Jesse Gardner-Russell.

As a result, these hard working postgraduate students are struggling to make ends meet in this cost-of-living crisis:

Lack of Welfare Support: Only 18.2% of domestic postgraduate coursework students reporting receipt of study-related Centrelink payments, and 7.2% of other Centrelink payments. Meaning the majority of postgraduates on mandatory placements receive no cost-of-living support. Of those on Youth Allowance, most reported having have only $13 a day to cover food transport, medicine, utilities, and other costs

Cost of Placements: One study revealed that medical students paid on average $62.6 a week for placements, and non-medical students paid on average $117.7 per week for placements.

Locking Australians out of STEM: Despite 17.7% of Australians reporting as living with a disability, only 2% of medical students self-report as living with a disability, and only 0.5% of doctors identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander.

“Having gone through unpaid placements for my teaching course, I know how hard it can be to juggle multiple days of placements a week without financial support. That’s why we’re thankful that the Federal Government made the Commonwealth Prac payment for teaching, nursing and social work students. But we, know that at the 72% of postgrads say cost-of-living was the biggest challenge they face. Our postgrads on STEM placement need support,” said National Vice President, Richard Lee.

Recommendations:

The Commonwealth Prac Payment be extended to all postgraduate students undertaking mandatory placements.
Ensuring that the payment is indexed appropriately.

ENDS

Jesse Gardner-Russell | Taylor Broadbent

National President | Media and Communications Director

Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations Inc.

Level 1, 120 Clarendon St, Southbank, Victoria 3006

president@capa.edu.au | media@capa.edu.au

Media Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
3rd February 2025 – The Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations (CAPA) is deeply concerned by the latest Universities Australia report, which reveals an alarming eight percent drop in domestic PhD enrolments between 2018 and 2023. In our 2025-2026 Pre-Budget Submission, CAPA underscored a growing crisis for postgraduate students, exacerbated by inadequate financial support and an unsustainable cost of living. PhD stipends in Australia remain far below living costs. The current base stipend is $33,511 per year. For a candidate working 40 hours per week throughout the year, this equates to just $17.45 per hour or $698 per week. This is significantly lower than the national minimum wage of $24.10 per hour.
“Full-time PhD research, we’re expected to be completing 40 hours a week on our PhD. That’s a full-time jobs equivalent of work. And most PhD students are completing more hours a week than just that 40,” said CAPA National President Jesse Gardner-Russell to the ABC.
“It’s very common for PhD students to come in at 9am and be leaving at 9, 10, 11pm.” Critically, 71% of PhD candidates work over 41 hours per week on their PhD – and they are struggling to make ends meet in this cost-of-living crisis:

Housing Costs: With over 50% of University of Melbourne PhD’s reporting housing as their major issue, according to the ABC, the average rent in Australia last year was $32,693 per year, leaving PhD students with little to cover other essentials.
Grocery Bills: Monash University PhD’s reported spending an average of $722 per month ($8,664 per year) on groceries, and according to 9 News the average household grocery bill is $764 per month. This is a figure that consumes a substantial portion of the base stipend.
Childcare Expenses: The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) found the average out-of-pocket cost for centre-based daycare is $48.50 per child per day($7702.50 per year). For PhD candidates with children, these expenses can consume over 27% of their annual stipend, disproportionately impacting women and those with caregiving responsibilities.

“Just think of all of the things that are additional to your life beyond bills and rent and that sort of things that make you happy, and how often you have to think about whether or not you want to do those things,” said CAPA Policy and Research Officer, Maxim Jon Buckley to the ABC.
“Universities may top-up the scholarships, but this creates an impossible choice between offering more scholarships to provide. That is – more opportunities to people like myself from regional Victoria to pursue cutting edge research. Or to provide bigger stipends so that the existing PhD students are better supported. So, it is unfair to say it is the universities fault. Indeed, most universities utilise whatever resources they can to stretch the Federal Government’s funding as far and wide as they can,” said Jesse GardnerRussell on ABC News 24.
Australia’s PhD stipends are not competitive on a global scale. The average PhD stipend in the United States is AUD $67,561.40, nearly double Australia’s base rate. The United Kingdom and Canada recently raised their PhD stipend to AUD $41,372 and AUD $44,000, respectively. “We are competing with countries like Singapore, South Korea, Canada and the European Union who are investing heavily in R&D, and investing in R&D means more PhD students,” said Maxim Jon Buckley.
“There’s misalignment in how our country speaks about valuing building research capability when it pays students at the forefront of this work below the minimum wage … it becomes a labour of love,” said, Jesse Gardner-Russell to the Guardian.
Hence, CAPA implores the Federal Government to consider the following recommendations to support Australia’s future research workforce.
Recommendations:

That the Research Training Program (RTP) Stipend base rate be increased to be equivalent to the minimum wage and continue to be indexed annually to maintain its value.
Increase the RTP funding pool available to universities to accommodate the changes to the RTP stipend base rate.
That the RTP Stipend for part-time candidates should be included under Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (Cth) as ‘educational purposes’ and treated as tax exempt income.
The period of stipend support under the Commonwealth Scholarships Guidelines (Research) 2017 be 4-years, with extensions up to 5-years, or part-time equivalent to match the period of candidature typical for most universities.

“In the international scene, PhD research is hugely important and as a country that calls itself the clever country I think it’s really important that we support the people that are driving our reputation,” said Jesse Gardner-Russell to the ABC.
However, the continued decline in domestic PhD enrolments reflects a systemic failure to support students adequately. “We’re talking about the top talent in our country. They are looking at other opportunities, other avenues, which will provide either stable employment and that could be in industry or in the public sector, or at other universities to complete their PhDs in other countries,”

ENDS

Jesse Gardner-Russell | Taylor Broadbent
National President | Media and Communications Director
Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations Inc.
Level 1, 120 Clarendon St, Southbank, Victoria 300