I'm an Australian uni student. 19.

I'm currently still studying, double degree in business and information systems. Our "student loans" are government funded if you're an Australian citizen. It's not completely free, but the loan itself (HECS debt) doesn't accrue interest, and you don't need to pay it back til you're earning over 45.5k per year (which I am). However, if you leave the country, you are also not liable to pay back the student debt. But they're working on changing that.

I feel as though, Australians have it really good. A lot of my peers that I attended HS with, I feel, have abused that fact that they can attend high school for free. University for free and it won't cost them anything to get an education but they choose to fuck about and waste it.

Funnily enough, I work as a revenue specialist - so I kinda deal with debt collections. Previously was a debt collected.

If at any point, you default on your payments. You are granted a grace period to pay back the owing amount plus whatever for that month. If you are unable to service the loan and fail to make payments, you are initially issued with a section 88 that stations the outstanding amount is due and payable. If you fail to adhere to that notice, another notice called 21d is issued and the whole account needs to be paid by x date. It'll go through a cycle, with 180 days normally before the financial institution will decide to act on it. They can file legal action, sell the debt off to another company (you don't want that) AND credit list you all at the same time. (Alternatively, you can become bankrupt) Being credit listed will ruin your life for the next 7 years and that's not something you want. Ever.

So pay your bills and be smart with your money!