iainpat

Hi, We have been looking at moving to Adelaide and have 2 daughters aged 18 and 15. My oldest daughter is in university studying law. I have looked at applying for her to attend university in Adelaide and getting credit for her year she has studied. Can anyone tell me why it is nearly $16,000 per year to study? I thought the UK was expensive at £1200(course fees)!!!

bondipom

Is that resident fees? The fees can be paid for with HECs which, like the student loan, can be paid off through tax when your daughter is earning. 1200GBP is cheap but the fees both here and the UK will rise.

Good luck but taxpayers do not want to pay much for uni anymore.

Sue from Manchester

It all depends what kind of visa you have. If you/she has a permanent resident visa then she should pay australian resident fees of around $6,800 per year (this is band 2 - engineer etc, lawyers are more, arts courses are less). They have changed from HEFCE this very month. The difference is that as a PR Visa holder rather than a citizen she will not be able to defer these payments. She will need to pay half, i.e., one semester, up front with no possibility of deferment, no loans. So good news - she only pays same as an Australian. Bad news - she has to pay it up front.
Just looked into all this and have been emailing the universities. They are very quick to tell you what their "fees" are without realising that you count as a home student. You cannot be expected to contribute more than the fee I quoted above p.a.
Hope this helps.
Sue

JAJ

She needs to check specifically whether a place is available as a home student and what credit is available. She may be disappointed in that respect - and may have to consider validating her visa and then finishing her degree in the UK before migrating.

This of course carries risks, not least that if some circumstance keeps her in the UK too long she might lose her PR. Also, her UK law degree might not be fully recognised in Australia and she might need to do further study - again, she needs to check.

Jeremy

Bob

That would be the biggest problem surely? and $16K a year, that's pretty cheap, keeping in mind, without LEA sponsorship, fee's in the UK on average are £8-13K a year....but as already said depends on course type...
Just a thought, would you be able to get the student loans company to stump up cost for foreign fees?

iainpat

Thankyou for your replies. My daughter is currently in the latter stages of her first year of her law degree which is 3 years. If she goes to finishing school that could take another year also. I will be over 40 then and lose points and you never know when they may stop offering the regional visa for SA! That said i was still surprised by the cost of the law degree in Adelaide considering that i was led to believe that wages were lower in Australia. At the end of the degree here i would estimate around 10k debts and in Aus i think this would certainly more than double? I have contacted Adelaide university (which is very impressive) about credit for previous study etc but apparently you have to submit the application first. I was also told that for an Australian citizen the fees are $13200 approx so there is a saving there. After all said and done if i apply for a visa and get accepted i would have three years to go i think! so she may have finished or we could go out and set up first...it's a dilemma!!

JAJ

If you are applying for a SIR visa and going to SA in that capacity then:

- she will be charged overseas student fees; and
- she will have less flexibility in terms of living overseas as she would usually be expected to live in the regional area too (however DIMIA may be flexible in specific cases).

If she finished her law degree in the UK, it would then be advisable to switch to the Australian system rather than go on and do the solicitor qualification in the UK.

You've got a complex migration problem here - get some good professional advice on the options available.

Jeremy