What a Master of Teaching really costs in 2026

The 2026 fee for a Commonwealth supported place

Almost every Australian university offers its Master of Teaching as a Commonwealth supported place for eligible domestic students. The government pays most of the tuition and you pay a capped student contribution. Education units sit in Band 1, the cheapest band, alongside nursing, English and maths. For 2026 the Band 1 maximum is $4,738 per EFTSL (one equivalent full-time student load, roughly a full-time year).

Because the band is set nationally, the CSP cost is almost identical whichever university you choose. What changes is how the load is spread. A standard program is 2.0 EFTSL over two years. An accelerated program packs the same load into 1.3 to 1.5 years, so it costs about the same in fees but gets you earning a teacher's salary sooner.

Who pays full fee, and what that costs

You'll usually only pay full fee if you aren't eligible for a CSP or the university has no CSP left in your course. At Federation University, the domestic full fee of $30,800 a year applies only to students who are not CSP-eligible; it says full-fee places are not otherwise offered in its teaching masters. Over 2 years that's $61,600, more than six times the CSP cost.

• Australian citizens can usually get a CSP and defer the whole contribution through HECS-HELP.
• Permanent residents and most New Zealand citizens can usually take a CSP but generally can't use HECS-HELP, so they pay the student contribution upfront. Check your status on StudyAssist before you enrol.
• Temporary visa holders (including most people waiting on a skilled visa) are international students and pay international fees.
• If you already hold a teaching qualification, some universities won't offer you a second CSP in initial teacher education. Ask before applying.

The costs that aren't on your fee statement

Tuition is the smaller part of the bill for most career changers. Under national accreditation rules a graduate-entry teaching degree includes at least 60 days of supervised professional experience (UNSW's secondary masters lists up to 80). Placements run on school hours, are unpaid and are hard to fit around a full-time job.

Money that offsets the cost

For many postgraduate students the support available is worth more than the CSP fee itself. The two national payments are the Commonwealth Prac Payment and the Commonwealth Teaching Scholarship. States add their own, covered in paid to study teaching.

Accelerated or two years: what the time is worth

If you can manage the workload, an accelerated program usually costs the same in fees but gets you onto a full salary months earlier. In NSW a graduate starts on $92,882 (Step 1, from 9 October 2026). Every extra month at university is about $7,740 of gross salary you don't earn, roughly $6,053 after tax.

Repaying the debt on a teacher's salary

HECS-HELP and FEE-HELP are repaid through the tax system once your repayment income passes $69,528 in 2026-27. Repayments are marginal: 15 cents for each dollar above that threshold, up to $129,717. Every government graduate salary is over the threshold, so repayments begin in your first full-time year.

At those rates a CSP debt of about $9,500 is usually cleared in the first 2 to 3 years of full-time teaching. A $61,600 full-fee debt would take well over a decade at graduate rates, and it's indexed every June in the meantime. If you have an older HECS debt from a first degree, the repayments are the same: they're based on your income, not the size of the debt, so the new debt just takes longer to clear.

Is a Master of Teaching worth it?

In a CSP, almost certainly on the fees alone. The debt is small, and pay rises fast: NSW goes from $92,882 to $133,422 at Step 7 in about six years. Your previous career may also lift your starting step. NSW, for example, can credit recently qualified career changers with up to 6 years of experience for salary. See career change to teaching and how teacher pay steps work.