On 3 November 2024, the Australian Government announced it would reduce all current Higher Education Loan Program (HELP) debt and other student loan debt by 20%. This means that Australians will have less student debt to pay back.
How will this work?
The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) will automatically apply the one-off 20% reduction to an individual’s HELP accounts before indexation is applied on 1 June 2025.
This means indexation would apply only to the remaining balance e.g. after the HELP debt that has been reduced by 20%.
Who will benefit from this?
Anyone with one of the following student loans will benefit from these measures:
- any of the HELP loans, including HECS-HELP, FEE-HELP, STARTUP-HELP, SA-HELP, OS-HELP
- VET Student Loans
- Australian Apprenticeship Support Loans
- Student Start-up Loans
- Student Financial Supplement Scheme