Student loan performance criteria
You must meet certain criteria to remain eligible for a Student Loan or Student Allowance. If you lose eligibility, there are steps to regain it.
Student loan performance criteria overview
To maintain eligibility for a Student Loan, all students who have studied at least 192 points or 1.6 EFTS (about two years of full-time study) will need to have passed and completed at least 50 percent of their courses.
The assessment of performance includes courses of study that ended in 2009 or later. StudyLink has an online calculator to help you access your eligibility. The table below provides a rough guide to help you calculate the EFTS component of your courses, based on 1 EFTS being equivalent to 120 points.
| Point per paper | EFTS (rounded) |
|---|---|
| 10 | 0.0833 |
| 15 | 0.1250 |
| 20 | 0.1667 |
| 30 | 0.2500 |
Equivalent Full-time Student (EFTS) is a measure of the amount of study involved in a course or programme. Generally, a full-time workload is equivalent to between 0.8 and 1.2 EFTS.
Use the StudyLink performance calculator to measure your performance for Student Loan eligibility.
What to do if you lose access to the Student Loan
1. Self-fund
You can regain access to the Student Loan by paying for your study yourself (self-funding) until you have passed at least half of your attempted points. To work out how many points you need to self-fund, subtract your passed points from your failed points.
Example: In first and second year, Mark passed 100 points and failed 140 points. He can enrol in 40 points (140 minus 100), and pay for them himself. If he passes all 40 points, he reaches the halfway mark (passed 140 out of 280), and then becomes eligible for a Student Loan again.
2. Postpone your study for five years
You can wait until your previous failed study is no longer counted toward your performance assessment. This follows a five-year cycle. For example, for study in 2018, results from 2013 to 2017 are considered.
If you are unsure about these options, you can contact the Student Finance Advisers by emailing student-hardship@vuw.ac.nz to discuss your situation.
Lifetime limit criteria
For all students with a StudyLink loan for study undertaken from 1 January 2010 onwards, there is a lifetime limit of 7 EFTS for Student Loans.
Seven EFTS is equivalent to approximately seven to eight years of full-time study, based on a study load of between 0.8 EFTS and 1.2 EFTS per year. Part-time students use fewer EFTS each year.
Once any part of a Student Loan is used, such as living costs, fees or course-related costs, that loan counts towards the 7 EFTS limit.
The 7 EFTS limit may be extended in some circumstances, such as when undertaking postgraduate study.
For more information, visit the StudyLink website.