Postgraduate study

A full-fee place is a place at university that receives no financial contribution from the government. Fees cover the full cost of tuition and vary from program to program.

If you are enrolled in a full-fee place, you may be eligible to apply for a FEE-HELP loan, which you can use to defer payment of part or all of your tuition fees.

To be eligible for a domestic full-fee place you must be:

• an Australian citizen, or
• an Australian permanent visa holder or New Zealand citizen

If you meet the above criteria but are not enrolled in a full-fee place, then you are a Commonwealth supported student.

If you do not meet the eligibility criteria for a domestic full-fee place or a Commonwealth supported place, please visit the RMIT International fees site.

You will pay fees based upon the number of credit points you are enrolled in for your program and the fee per credit point for that program in the current year.

Most programs at RMIT have a standard annual full-time load of 96 credit points, so you can estimate your expected tuition fee for the year by multiplying the fee per credit point by 96.

You can also calculate the cost of any course in the same way. The list of courses offered by RMIT contains the credit point value for each course. The full-fee tuition fees list contains the fee per credit point for each program.

• 2023 Course list (PDF 2.1MB 437p)

Example 1:

A student will be enrolled full-time in a degree, which has a fee per credit point of $300.. To calculate the annual tuition fee for this program, the student needs to multiply the number of credit points by the fee per credit point as follows:

Example 2:

Some programs, such as accelerated programs, may require enrolment in more than 96 credit points in a year to enable students to complete the program in the allocated time. To calculate fees in these programs, students will need to know how many credit points are required in the year of their enrolment.

For example, a student will be enrolled full-time in an accelerated Master program, which has a total of 144 credit points and can be completed in one year. The tuition fee can be calculated as follows:

RMIT reserves the right to adjust tuition fees for full-fee places on an annual basis by an amount that will not exceed 7.5% each year (subject to rounding).

For higher education fees, tuition fees are rounded up to the nearest $10 per credit point increment, and so the actual fee increase may exceed 7.5%.

You may be eligible to apply for a FEE-HELP loan, which you can use to defer payment of part or all of your tuition fees.

Don’t forget to include other fees such as the student services and amenities fee (SSAF) and materials fees to determine the overall costs. 

You may be eligible to apply to defer payment of the SSAF through the SA-HELP loan scheme.

A Commonwealth supported place (CSP) is a place at university where the tuition fee is jointly paid by you and the Commonwealth Government. Your share of the fee (student contribution) is set by the government and determined by the discipline areas (also referred to as bands) of your individual enrolled courses (subjects), not the overall program

To be eligible for a CSP you must be:

• an Australian citizen, or
• an Australian permanent visa holder or New Zealand citizen, and
• meet the relevant citizenship and residency requirements.

If you are an Australian citizen, you will meet the CSP residency requirements if you undertake at least some of your program of study in Australia.

If you are a permanent visa holder or a New Zealand citizen, you must be resident in Australia for the duration of your course(s) to meet the CSP residency requirements.

As a CSP student, you may be eligible to apply for a HECS-HELP loan, which can be used to defer payment of up to 100% of your student contribution fees.

You cannot be enrolled in a Commonwealth supported place under the following circumstances:

• the course contributes to a program that is being undertaken primarily at an overseas campus
• the enrolment is an employer-reserved place
• the course forms part of a bridging course for overseas-trained professionals, or
• the course forms part of a program the Minister has specified, by way of legislative instrument, that students cannot be enrolled in as Commonwealth supported students.

Each program has courses you must complete to meet the academic requirements of your award program. If you wish to study additional courses that are not part of your program, you will be unable to study those additional courses and receive Commonwealth support. This is because the additional courses do not contribute towards your degree.

If you have already completed a course for which a pass grade or higher has been achieved, and the course contributes to the academic requirements of your award program, you will be unable to re-enrol in that same course and be Commonwealth supported. 

If you wish to study additional courses that do not contribute towards your degree, or continue studying once you have met the requirements for your award program, you may have options to do so under other enrolment arrangements such as non-award study, single or short courses. 

Students who don't require an exact figure for their student contribution amount can estimate their contribution by assuming that all courses in their program will be from the same band and using the maximum student contribution for that band as their estimate.

What you are charged in 2023 will depend on if you are a commencing or continuing student. Annual fees displayed are per EFTSL: Effective Full-Time Student Load.

2023 student contribution fees for commencing students

*students who commenced their program in 2020 or earlier. 

Professional Pathway Psychology and Professional Pathway Social Work

Commencing students in these programs will be charged student contribution fees based on their program type for the units (courses) that meet the Australian Government’s Professional Pathway Psychology or Professional Pathway Social Work requirements.

For Professional Pathway Psychology, these are units that begin with field of education prefix 0907 (e.g 090701, 090799).

For Professional Pathway Social Work, these are units that begin with field of education prefix 0905 (e.g 090509, 090513).

Postgraduate Clinical Psychology

Continuing and commencing students in MC002 Master of Clinical Psychology will be charged student contribution fees at the Postgraduate Clinical Psychology rate for units (courses) that meet the Australian Government’s requirements for this program type, which are units with field of education 090701.

Grandfathering arrangements will be in place for continuing students who commenced prior to 2021 and would see an increase in their student contribution amounts under the Government's new Commonwealth supported place fee structure.

Under these arrangements, students who commenced their course of study before 1 January 2021 and are facing increased student contribution amounts for a unit, will instead have their student contribution amount remain as it were under 2020 arrangements (with fees indexed by CPI each year).

If continuing students are enrolled in units that will see their student contribution amount lowered under the Government's new CSP fee structure, their student contribution will be the lowered amount.

To determine the exact annual fee for a program, you need to know which courses you will be undertaking as well as the band and weight for each course.

• 2023 Course list (PDF 2.1MB 437p)

To calculate an exact fee for a course, the student contribution is calculated by multiplying the EFTSL value of the course by the maximum student contribution for the band that the course has been allocated to. Your enrolment program structure shows which courses you need to complete to meet the academic requirements of your program. 

Example 1: student contribution for one course

A 12 credit point economics course has an EFTSL of 0.125. For a commencing student, the 2021 student contribution for this course will be $1,812.00 (rounded down to the nearest dollar):

$14,500 x 0.125 = $1,812.00

Example 2: student contribution for multiple courses

A student commences a degree in 2021. In their first year, they enrol in eight courses of equal weighting (8 x 12 credit point courses), which comprise a standard full-time load (96 credit points). They enrol in five business courses and three mathematics courses. Their student contribution for 2021 would be calculated as follows:

* the fee for each course is rounded down to the nearest dollar

Please note

Some programs, such as accelerated programs, may require students to enrol in more than 96 credit points in some or all years of the program. The annual student contribution can still be determined by adding together the cost for each course undertaken in that year.

Some programs, such as accelerated programs, may require students to enrol in more than 96 credit points in some or all years of the program.

The annual student contribution can still be determined by adding together the cost for each course undertaken in that year.

Don’t forget to include other fees such as the student services and amenities fee (SSAF) and materials fees to determine the overall costs. 

You may be eligible to apply to defer payment of the SSAF through the SA-HELP loan scheme.