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What Is Youth Allowance?
You may have heard the term before and you may be aware that you can benefit from it whilst studying, but overall, what is it exactly? Keep reading to find out how you could possibly benefit from it.
Along with Austudy and ABSTUDY, Youth Allowance is a Centrelink payment from the Government and is available to eligible students in Australia.
Lucky for you, finding out if are eligible for Youth Allowance is really simple. In order to be eligible for Youth Allowance you must:
For a list of Centrelink Approved Courses and Institutions that will allow you to receive Youth Allowance whilst studying, click the button below.
View Centrelink Approved Course List
Finding a Centrelink Approved Course that you want to study is great but another really important thing to note about receiving Youth Allowance is that Centrelink will also look at your current income to make sure you aren’t earning over the threshold.
If at first, you were wondering “What is Youth Allowance?”, you are probably now wondering what the hell “the threshold” means… Which is totally normal, so we’ve tried to make this as easy to understand as possible.
Basically, “the threshold” is a certain amount of money that you are allowed to earn before your Youth Allowance payments are affected. Essentially, The Youth Allowance payment is to help assist full-time students who may be struggling to earn cash while they study.
So the Government have calculated a “threshold” figure that they believe a student should be able to get by on and have made it available for those who need it most. Students who already earn well over that threshold will either not be eligible to receive Youth Allowance Payments or will have a certain amount deducted from what Centrelink is willing to pay them.
For example, let’s say your threshold $450 and your Centrelink payment is $200. If for the fortnight you earned $500, your payment would be deducted by $50 as you earned $50 over your threshold. The higher your income gets, the more you lose out on your Youth Allowance payment. If a student’s threshold was $450 but their income was $700 they wouldn’t be eligible for Youth Allowance as they earn too much money beyond the threshold.
Every student’s circumstances are different so it’s best to check out the Department of Human Services website to get an even better understanding.
One last helpful point to note is that if Centrelink considers you as a “dependant”, they will need to see your parent's financial details as well. The reason for that is because if you’re depending on your parents to live i.e living in their house, they technically need to support you. So depending on their income, your eligibility for payments could also be affected.
If you are not considered a “dependant”, your eligibility won’t be affected however Centrelink may want to look at your personal assets to take into account when processing your claim.
Hopefully, this article has helped you understand a little more about Youth Allowance and how it works; if you’d like more clarity, head to the Human Services website for more details.
If you are an Australian resident between 18 and 24 and are seriously planning on applying for Youth Allowance, then you really need to find a Centrelink Approved Course first. Click the button below to search our directory for the Centrelink-approved online Courses we have on offer.
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