General information about fees
The Student Financials Office is responsible for:
- sending invoices/statements for your fees
- processing University scholarship payments into your accounts (does not include scholarships not administered by the University)
- processing fees remission applications for staff
- liaising with StudyLink to confirm your enrolment details
- processing fee refunds.
There are two main categories of fees that you may see on your invoice. Each category has different charge types.
1. Course Fees (these relate to the actual courses you are doing)
- Tuition Fee: this is the fee of each course that you do.
- Field Trip Fee: in some courses it is compulsory for students to participate in a field trip
2. Term Fees (these relate to the number of points you are enrolled in each semester)
- Student Services Fee: this is a fee charged for the provision or subsidy of various services that students have access to.
- Building Levy: a small charge collected for the maintenance and restoration of University buildings, and for the development of new buildings.
The student services fee allows access to/subsidises the following:
- Health and counselling services
- Careers advisory service
- Recruitment and course advice
- Disability services
- Student emergency fund
- Financial advisory service
- International student advisory service
- Accommodation office
- Chaplaincy services
- Early childhood education services
- Campus recreation overheads
- Provision for the continuation of services previously supplied by AUSA (eg, advocacy services, cultural clubs, sports clubs, social activities, information services, student representation, student help centres)
Each of the main fees that we administer is charged on a per point basis. The more points you do, the more you can expect to pay. Course fee charges are based on a number of factors, including:
- The faculty that teaches the course (for example, an Arts course will be charged differently to an Engineering course).
- Whether the course is being studied at undergraduate or postgraduate level.
- The content of the course (lecture-based courses are often cheaper than studio-based courses).
In some cases, the base fee may be set according to the particular degree/programme (this is usually only in cases where the courses to be taken are prescribed/fixed).
Term fees are charged according to the number of points you are taking within each term. If you take three courses (totalling 45 points) in one semester then no matter what faculty they belong to, your term fees will be charged based on the 45 points (not on the faculty the courses relate to).
We do not determine what the fees for each year will be. Fees are set by the University Council and are based on recommendations from each individual faculty.
The New Zealand Government subsidies the fees of domestic students, so they generally pay a lower rate than international students.
A domestic student is someone who is either a New Zealand citizen, a New Zealand or Australian permanent resident, or an Australian citizen resident in New Zealand.
