Commonwealth supported (HECS) what?

[kingpotato]

Sorry if this is in the wrong forum. I don't post often

I got an offer from Latrobe (undergrad arts). Cool yay. But I'm worried about whether or not I have a commonwealth supported place.
In my offer information, it says in my liability category  "Commonwealth Supported (HECS)"   does that mean it's subsidized?
I got a pretty trash ATAR, and I was lead to believe that I'd have to be a full fee paying student. I'm a citizen here, by the way.
 I'll call and ask, but before I embarrass myself, can anyone help?

Also, how much is the HECS limit? As in, how much can I borrow? I want to do post graduate too, so, it will be a problem if I have to dish out like 20,000 a year for a BA. I heard the limit per student is about $80 - 100 thousand.

[heart]

If I'm not mistaken there so no such thing as FFP for any undergraduate courses for domestic students in Australia. Not sure about the limit to be honest but if it is 100k you would have plenty of room to do a graduate CSP course.

[kingpotato]

Oh, really? Well I'd hope so

[Russ]

Yes, that means it's subsidised. If it wasn't, it would be clear. You don't need to pay anything up front, just through the tax system once you start working.
The government keeps changing the HECS maximum and I think it is currently uncapped (it used to be 7 years).
If you do full fee postgraduate studies then there's a different loan scheme (FEE HELP) and that's the one with the 80-100k limit, depending on what you study.

[kingpotato]

thank you! Ah, so HECS if just for undergrad?

[Mellyboo]

"There is no financial limit to the amount of HECS-HELP an eligible student can access. As this is a separate loan scheme to FEE-HELP, any amounts borrowed under HECS-HELP will not count towards the FEE-HELP limit (refer to Chapter 5)."


"There are two types of FEE-HELP limits:

For most students, the FEE-HELP limit in 2016 is $99,389.
For students undertaking medicine, dentistry and veterinary science courses which lead to initial registration to practise in one of those fields, the FEE-HELP limit in 2016 is $124,238.
This limit is indexed on 1 January each year and excludes any loan fee."

[heart]

HECs isn't only for undergrad. Postgrad courses do have HECs too but they aren't as plentiful as for undergrad courses and may have extra requirements e.g certain WAM or GPA

[jamonwindeyer]

Just as a side note too, I'm almost* certain there is no such thing as not getting HECS due to your ATAR. If you get accepted into the course, and you are eligible (you are a citizen so you are eligible), then you get HECS

* Surely it's not a thing?