HECS and HELP

On 1 January 2005, the Australian Government introduced the Higher Education Loan Program (HELP), replacing the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) and other earlier loan schemes. If the Australian Government lends you money under any of the schemes, or you have a debt from the previous schemes, you will have a HELP debt. You will be required to start repaying your HELP debt when your repayment income is above the minimum repayment threshold for compulsory repayment.

On 1 June 2006, all outstanding accumulated HECS debts became accumulated HELP debts.

Information about HECS is available on the Commonwealth Government Going to Uni web site, where you’ll also find information about HELP.