Rendezvous CSP = Commonwealth Supported Place. It’s a fee type. When you get past Year 12, you’ll be studying at a tertiary level e.g. Uni, TAFE, specialist college. These have fees and, in the case of uni, those fees are often quite expensive (depends on area you study, but is about the same as 1-2 brand new car(s) these days). The government wants to encourage people to go to Uni, so they provide subsidies to Australian citizens and permanent residents so it’s more affordable. (The main alternative is full fee paying or FFP, which means you pay the whole fee.)
If you are applying via VTAC (for Victoria, not sure about other states), then you’ll be searching for a course with a VTAC course code ending in 1, which means it will be a CSP. CSPs are offered at most institutes and most courses, however, the number of CSP positions might be limited in certain courses, particularly for medicine.
In order to receive a CSP, you must apply for courses with VTAC course codes ending in 1. When Uni offers are made in January, you’ll know whether you received a CSP or not.
If you’re a CSP, you can also apply for HECS-HELP, which means you can postpone paying your fees until you earn a certain wage. (It’s basically a loan that you gradually pay off over your working years, with “indexation” applied rather than interest.)
More info is typically given when you get your uni offer (idk if VTAC are doing a December round this year, but often in Jan if not Dec), but there are resources about this:
- VTAC: here
- Study Assist (government website): here
Hopefully that makes sense. Otherwise, please feel free to ask. 🙂 (Note: I’m not from VTAC and my own uni experience was 5+ years ago now, so I am not the most updated person.)
