VET FEE-HELP – Preparing an Estimate for Advance Payments
Detailed instructions for preparing an estimate for advance payments and submitting this into VITS can be found in the document entitled: ‘VET FEE-HELP Estimate of Advance Payments’(the Estimate) which is on the VET FEE-HELP website:
http://www.innovation.gov.au/Skills/SkillsTrainingAndWorkforceDevelopment/VETFeeHelp/ApprovedVETProviders/Pages/UsefulPublicationsApprovedProviders.aspx
Change to Credit Transfer Requirements
From 1 January 2013, VET diploma and advanced diploma courses with unit census dates after 1January2013 will no longer require credit transfer arrangements (CTAs) to be approved for VETFEEHELP. This may have implications for your organisation’s tuition fee schedule and estimate of advanced payments for 2013, as well as for tuition assurance requirements.
From 1January2013, your students will be entitled to access VETFEEHELP assistance for Diploma level and above courses currently on your scope of delivery regardless of whether there are CTAs in place for these courses. You will need to add these courses to your tuition fee schedule.
If you intend to add new courses, due to the removal of the CTA requirement, you can submit these in your original estimate of advanced payments rather than submitting a variation after 1 January 2013.
If you have already submitted your 2013 estimate of advanced payments and do not have any new courses to add, then you do not need to resubmit your estimates. If you do have new courses then please contact the payments team via email to to request that the 2013 estimates be returned to draft. You can then resubmit your original estimates with the new courses included in the estimation.
Please ensure that you indicate in the estimate calculator which courses have been added. Please submit your 2013 estimate of advanced payments through VITS and advise the Department via email to with the subject line “Provider name: 2013 estimate including courses added due to the removal of CTA”.
General Overview
As VET FEE-HELP payments are made to providers monthly in advance over a calendar year it is important that VET providers submit an Estimate for how much funding is required based on a reasonable assessment of relevant information.
It is equally important that, during the year, as significant census dates are passed that providers reassess their Estimate based on actual figures available to them immediately after census dates. Requests to vary an Estimate can be made at any time within the calendar year.
In preparing an Estimate the following will need to be considered:
· By Course or Field of Study?
· Equivalent Full Time Study Load (EFTSL)
· Average Annual Course Cost (or if submitting information by Field of Study Weighted Average Annual Course Cost)
· Student withdrawals prior to census dates
· Deferral rate (the proportion of maximum available VET FEE-HELP assistance that students access)
· Variations
Each of these issues are addressed below.
By Course or by Field of Study
Depending upon how many VET FEE-HELP eligible courses a VET provider is currently offering (those that are on the published Schedule of VET Tuition Fees), an Estimate will be required to be completed either by ‘course’ or by ‘field of study’.
If the VET provider offers 50 or fewer courses, the information must be entered by course. If the course has the same name it is considered to be just one course even if it is offered at different times of the year and/or at different campuses.
There is scope, when preparing your estimate in the ‘VET FEE-HELP Estimate of Advance Payments’, to enter the same course several times to take account of different commencement dates occurring in the one calendar year. This means that the number of line entries in your estimate may be greater than 50 even though the number of VET FEE-HELP eligible courses (on the Schedule of VET Tuition Fees) is 50 or less.
If the VET provider offers 51 courses or more, the information will need to be entered by field of study categories (these are sourced from the Australian Standard Classification of Education (ASCED) ABS Catalogue No. 1272.0 which providers currently use when submitting VET FEE-HELP data into HEIMS).
1 = Natural and Physical Sciences / 7 = Education2 = Information Technology / 8 = Management and Commerce
3 = Engineering and Related Technologies / 9 = Society and Culture
4 = Architecture and Building / 10 = Creative Arts
5 = Agriculture, Environmental and Related Studies / 11 = Food, Hospitality and Personal Services
6 = Health / 12 = Mixed field programs
There are templates, in the ‘VET FEE-HELP Estimate of Advance Payments’ for entering your estimate data by Course or by Field of Study.
Equivalent Full Time Study load (EFTSL)
EFTSL is the measure of the study load. A student undertaking a course on a full time basis and utilising a standard study plan, will achieve an EFTSL of one (1) over the course of an academic year. EFTSL is adjusted according to the proportion of a full time study load a student will undertake in a year. In deciding the proportion of full time study which students will undertake in the year, please consider the following points:
· Students who undertake study full time for the whole year will attain a 100 per cent study load.
· The structure of the academic year – e.g. a student studying full time for one semester of a two semester academic year will attain a 50 per cent study load.
· The late commencement date of a course intake or the early completion date of a course, should be allocated a percentage which is closest to the percentage of the year the student will be studying.
· If students study on a part time basis, what percentage of the course load they will undertake.
· The course EFTSL identified on the published Schedule of VET Tuition Fees. If a course has been allocated an EFTSL of 0.5, a student studying this course full time will undertake a 50 per cent study load in the year.
· Combinations of the above scenarios. For example, a student commencing a course in July which has an EFTSL of 0.5, and choosing to study a half load will achieve a study load of 25 per cent.
· Providers offering courses on a trimester basis will need to determine the EFTSL based on the number of semesters a student undertakes. Students studying two out of three semesters should be allocated a study load of 66 per cent, and those studying one of three semesters should be allocated a load of 33 per cent.
Average Annual Course Cost
The way a provider determines ‘average annual course cost’ will depend on whether they are preparing their estimate by Course or by Field of Study.
By Course
If a course has more than one tuition fee, for example, different fees for different modes of study (by distance, face to face, on-line etc) the VET provider is required to determine the average annual course cost when preparing their estimate. Where the provider expects to have students in government subsidised places accessing VET FEE-HELP, this should also be taken into account when determining ‘Average Annual Course Cost’.
By Field of Study
To ensure realistic estimates are submitted, when providing an estimate by Field of Study, the average annual course cost will need to be 'weighted'. This can be done by taking into account the proportion of students in each course. For example, within the field of study ‘Management and Commerce’, three courses might be offered as follows:
A / B / C / DName of Course / Annual Cost of Course / Number of EFTSL / Number of EFTSL x Cost of Course / Weighted Average Annual Course Cost
Diploma of Accounting / $10,000 / 100 / $1,000,000
Diploma of Business / $ 6,000 / 10 / $60,000
Advanced Diploma of Business / $ 8,000 / 10 / $80,000
Total / $24,000 / 120 / $1,140,000 / $1,140,000 / 120 = $9,500
In order to derive the ‘Weighted Average Annual Course Cost’ for all courses within a Field of Study, the provider undertakes the following calculation steps:
1. For each course within a ‘field of study’, enter the average course cost (see Column ‘A’ above) and expected EFTSL (Column ‘B’)
2. Multiply the average course cost by the expected EFTSL (Column ‘C’)
3. Divide the total of Column ‘C’ by the total of Column ‘B’ to determine the ‘Weighted Average Annual Course Cost’ for this ‘Field of Study’.
These steps will need to be repeated for each ‘Field of Study’ in which the provider has VET FEE-HELP eligible courses.
Student withdrawals before census dates
Under the Higher Education Support Act 2003, a student does not incur a liability for a VET unit of study until after the census date, which can be set no earlier than 20 per cent of the way through a unit. The proportion of EFTSL that, based on past experience, is likely to withdraw prior to census dates needs to be taken into account when calculating estimates.
Deferral rate (the proportion of maximum available VET FEE-HELP assistance for students)
The deferral rate refers to the proportion of available VET FEE-HELP assistance that students actually use. For example, if the total annual tuition fees for a course is $5,000 students may choose how much of this to pay up front and how much to defer through a VET FEE-HELP loan. Some examples follow:
Student / Total Course Cost / Pay Up-Front / Pay through VFH loan / Deferral Rate (amount of course costs paid through VFH loan)A / $5,000 / $0,000 / $5,000 / 100%
B / $5,000 / $2,000 / $3,000 / 60%
C / $5,000 / $1,000 / $4,000 / 80%
Total / $15,000 / $3,000 / $12,000 / 80%
For 2011, the average deferral rate was 84 per cent. New providers should use this as a guide when preparing their first estimate. If the estimated deferral rate is higher than 84 per cent, providers will be required to substantiate their higher estimate.
Providers who have been operating as approved VET providers for more than one full calendar year should use the previous year’s deferral rate as a basis when preparing estimates for the coming year.
Variations
It is unlikely that the Estimate of Advance Payments will be the same as the actual amount of funding deferred through VET FEE-HELP assistance.
After census dates are passed a VET provider will be able to calculate how accurate their estimates were for those courses.
When a VET provider becomes aware that the difference between the estimate and the actual amount deferred is greater than 10 per cent the provider must contact DIISTRE and seek a variation to their monthly payments in advance.
Further Information
The key document you will need to begin preparing your payment estimates for submission into VITS is the ‘VET FEE-HELP Estimate of Advance Payments’ which can be found on the VET FEE-HELP website:
http://www.innovation.gov.au/Skills/SkillsTrainingAndWorkforceDevelopment/VETFeeHelp/ApprovedVETProviders/Pages/UsefulPublicationsApprovedProviders.aspx
If you have any queries or require further information you may send an email – ‘for attention of the Payments Team’ to
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