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Fee Remission in special circumstances

Can I get my fees or student contribution remitted if I withdrew late or failed a subject due to special circumstances?

Eligibility for Fee Remission in Special Circumstances is assessed in accordance with the Higher Education Support Act 2003 (HESA) 36-21 and 36-22.

You can apply for a remission of fees and/or reversal of HELP debt if you were unable to complete a subject’s requirements owing to special circumstances. Applications must be submitted within 12 months from the date of subject withdrawal or, if the subject was failed, within 12 months from the end of the study period in which the subject was undertaken.

If Fee Remission is granted for a failed subject, you will be considered for a grade change to withdrawn (WD). Note that this will only apply to subjects with census dates after 1 January 2018.

For Commonwealth Assisted students, if Fee Remission is granted, the subject won’t count as a fail toward your completion rate, or toward your Student Learning Entitlement.

Eligibility Criteria

Special circumstances are defined as circumstances that:

• are beyond your control in that they are not due to your action or inaction, either direct or indirect and are unusual or uncommon or abnormal
• make their full impact on, or after, the census date, and
• make it impracticable for you to complete the subject requirements

Your circumstances must have impacted you to the extent that you were unable to complete the subject requirements and must have occurred or worsened on or after the census date.

All of the above criteria must have been met in order to apply.

Application Time Limit

If you are a Commonwealth Supported student who commenced your course from 2022 onwards, it’s  important to submit your Fee Remission in Special Circumstances application as soon as possible after subject withdrawal or failing the subject. This will help enable your situation to be assessed before the next completion rate check. 

Commonwealth legislation requires Fee Remission applications to be submitted within 12 months of the date of subject withdrawal, or if the subject is failed, within 12 months from the end of the study period in which the subject was undertaken. You can check the end of study period for each subject on the University Handbook by viewing the date 'Assessment period ends' under 'Dates and Times'.

The Higher Education Support Act 2003 (Cth) (HESA), 36-23 (b) provides for a waiver of the application period only on the ground that it would not be, or was not, possible for the application to be made before the end of that period.

Applications submitted outside the 12 month time limit will not be considered unless you can demonstrate, with evidence, that it was not possible for you to apply within this timeframe. Being unaware of fee remission is not accepted as a reason for not applying within the application period; information on fee remission is published on the University website and is accessible to all students.

Applications for a waiver of the 12 month time limit can be submitted via email to: sa-remission@unimelb.edu.au.

Please note that students are not eligible to apply for Fee Remission for a subject or subjects that they initially successfully completed (passed) but which are subsequently altered to late-withdrawn as an outcome of a Special Consideration application.

Supporting Documentation

How to apply

Support