ABSTUDY Lawful Custody Allowance
Help for Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and Australian Apprentices with study and training costs while in custody.
Being in custody can mean in a correctional institution, remand centre or youth training centre.
Lawful Custody Allowance helps pay for essential course costs. They can include:
- education institution fees like union, sports, library, administration, amenities or laboratory fees or levies
- textbooks, art material, stationery, ink cartridges and paper for computer printers
- photocopying costs, due to restricted access and inability to borrow library books
- approved daily travel expenses to and from the education institution
- compulsory equipment, where it’s unreasonable for the institution to provide them.
The education provider, such as the head of the school or department, must approve essential course costs.
What it doesn’t pay for
You can’t use the allowance to pay for any of the following:
- tuition or course fees
- items education providers normally provide such as musical instruments, cameras, videos, sewing machines or computers.
Page last updated: 3 December 2020
This information was printed 14 January 2021 from https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/individuals/services/centrelink/abstudy-lawful-custody-allowance. It may not include all of the relevant information on this topic. Please consider any relevant site notices at https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/individuals/site-notices when using this material.