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Student Learning Entitlement (SLE)

From 1 January 2005, all eligible domestic students received a Student Learning Entitlement (SLE). The SLE provides access to a Commonwealth supported place for the equivalent of seven years of full-time study. Each student's SLE is reduced for each subject undertaken as a Commonwealth supported student.

There are three types of SLE:

Ordinary SLE

  • the type of SLE that all eligible Commonwealth supported students receive when they first commence higher education. All students (including those that commenced their course prior to 1 January 2005) received an ordinary SLE of 7 EFTSL (equivalent full-time student load) on 1 January 2005.

Additional SLE

  • an extra entitlement to ensure that eligible students have enough SLE to undertake a program in a Commonwealth supported place. Additional SLE will be provided to eligible students enrolling in:

  • undergraduate programs which run for longer than six years

  • honours programs

  • graduate entry bachelor degrees

  • a small number of postgraduate coursework programs

The amount of additional SLE that students receive depends on the program they are enrolled in and whether they have used additional SLE in the past.

Lifelong SLE

Eligible students can also accrue lifelong SLE and return to study as a Commonwealth supported student in order to retrain or broaden their skills.

Fee paying students do not use SLE.

The Commonwealth Government's SLE Guidelines specify courses and circumstances in which additional SLE and lifelong SLE will be granted.

Monitoring use of SLE

Commonwealth supported students can monitor their use of SLE through ‘myUniAssist’ on the Government website www.goingtouni.gov.au/. A CHESSN is required to logon to myUniAssist.

Note that there is a time lag between the issue of your CAN (where you will find your CHESSN) and the appearance of your updated SLE information on myUniAssist.