11. Provider fee limit

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A provider fee limit is a maximum dollar amount for VET Student Loans that can be paid to a provider for a particular period for approved VSL courses. The provider’s fee limit is a condition of approval. It is generally provided for a calendar year and relates to census days [part 26] occurring in that year.

If you exceed this fee limit, you could breach the conditions of your approval. It may indicate issues with your management and governance arrangements.

The provider fee limit is set based on several factors, including:

The loan cap amounts are indexed annually and can be found in VET Student Loans Course Caps Indexed Amounts (for providers).

The capped loan amount may be larger or smaller than the tuition fees you decide to charge for a course.

11.1 - How to use your provider fee limit

You may have options about how you use your provider fee limit. For example, if you have been approved to offer loans for 8 different courses, and no separate fee limit for any one of those courses has been imposed, you can choose how many loans you offer for each of the courses. However, your total provider fee limit must not exceed the maximum specified in your approval documentation.

If you have been given a fee limit for a course, you don’t have this option. You cannot exceed the maximum limit for the course.

Use of your fee limit is based on when a unit census day falls, not when the payment is assessed or made. Therefore, a unit with a census day in December of the current year will be assessed for payment against your current fee limit and paid on or about 24 January of the following year.

Example

A provider offers an approved course which has a loan cap of $15,000. The provider’s fee limit for the course is $150,000 for a 12-month period.

The course includes 3 census days. On each census day, the student becomes liable for $5,000 of the covered fee for the course. Over a 12-month period, 3 census days occur. This means each student accessing VSL for a course will be liable for $15,000 of the covered fee for the course over the 12-month period.

The provider could therefore enrol 10 full-time students on the basis that a certain portion of their course would be covered by VSL. The effect of the fee limit for this provider is that only 10 of their students can access VSL for the course in the 12-month period.

If there were more census days for more students within the relevant period, then the number of students able to access VSL would be lower. If some students were studying part time, the number of students could be higher.

You can apply to increase your provider fee limit [part 12] at any time.

11.2 - Monitoring your provider fee limit by census year

When monitoring use of your fee limit you will need to factor in when census days for a course are scheduled:

  • VSL Payments are made in arrears so payments in January are for census dates in previous year(s) and will be assessed against your fee limit for that year
  • Late reported data is assessed against the fee limit for the census year of the units not the payment year
  • You will need to ensure you have a sufficient fee limit to cover new enrolments as well as census dates for continuing students. Courses may be split across calendar years.  For example, a course that commences in July may have 2 census dates in that calendar year and 1 census date the following year.

Assessment of loan amounts against your fee limit is based on the year of the census day, not when the payment is assessed or made.

11.3 - What happens if a loan amount exceeds your provider fee limit

When the department assesses the data you submit, we also monitor student loan caps and provider fee limits. However, you are responsible for monitoring student loans to ensure they don’t exceed your provider fee limit.

We do not pay any loan amount that exceeds your provider fee limit. If you exceed the limit, you will need to resolve the situation with your students. That may involve not charging the student tuition fees for the course or part of the course, noting that students are not liable for VSL covered fees where you have exceeded the fee limit. You will also need to amend the student debt records in TCSI.

Legislation: Act s 34(3), Act s 56(4)