anyone that is living on campus could you please share your thoughts
The best thing for you to do would be to look up some of the on campus accommodation at the uni's you are interested, look at how much it costs, and then calculate if you could afford it - most have it on their websites. On campus accommodation can be very expensive. If you are looking at colleges, and trying to do it without parental support your best bet would be to try to get a scholarship. Without a scholarship or savings it would be quite difficult to afford college on part time job and youth allowance. You will find that many students either have parental support or a scholarship (or both). It also depends what your definition of part time job is, and how much you would be getting from that. I went to college a couple of years ago - I had combination of scholarship, money from part time work and parental support.
eg. College at the usyd colleges is about $450 a week when I last checked (differs between the colleges though). Youth allowance (independent, rent assistance) gives you about $482 fortnight (max payment) - this decreases once you start to earn over $400 a fortnight from other employment. Positives, that fee does include food, but it's going to be a struggle with textbook costs/social activities etc. If you have a part time job - say 2 days a week, 16 hours at $20 an hour that's $320 a week - that won't cover rent. The other thing about colleges (possibly different to places like UNSW/USYD village), the colleges have a set stay for university semesters but then most students go home to their parents for the holidays - so the base fee doesn't include stay during holidays etc.
As for eligibility for centrelink - you'll probably hit a sticking point there as well. If you are under 22 then you are considered dependent, thus despite whether your parents are assisting you financially or not, their income is taken into account in determining your eligibility. There are a few ways you can be considered independent if under 22 check it out here
http://www.humanservices.gov.au/cus...uth-allowance/eligibility-for-youth-allowance .
Also I think you may find that many colleges will have already closed applications for on campus accommodation for next year. This might be different for places such as SUV village at usyd (I'm not sure). If you are thinking about it for next year, best to get on to it asap.
