Her Year 12 son, Harrison, called had gone back to school for his final term with all of his friends. 

Three weeks in, he called her with some news.

“I think I want to go to university next year,” he said, not having mentioned the idea previously.

Though Ms West was happy her youngest son had decided what he wanted to do when he finished, there was one major red flag waving through her mind – where would they find the money.

“It was something that we hadn’t actually factored into,” Ms West admitted.

She and her husband run a 10,000-acre grain and cattle property, Southbend, near Arcadia Valley in the Central Highlands.

If Harrison was to study a Bachelor of Agribusiness, he would likely attend the University of new England at Armidale or the Emerald Agricultural College.

Either way, like many bush students wishing to pursue a tertiary education required him to leave home and live independently of his family.

Ms West is very concerned about how he’d “struggle” to balance study and demanding work commitments.

It was only the Monday before the ICPA conference she visited their accountant to discuss options.

“If your kids have made the choice to go to university you want them to be able to do the best they can. If they’ve got to be thinking about how they are going to pay for food and university fees and everything,” she said.

“And so you want to take as much stress away so they can get through university without having to worry about making ends meet.

“It just puts extra emphasis on what we have to do as parents while we’re dealing with commodities and drought and everything else. It places a lot of pressure on the family unit.”

Ms West is not alone. 

She was one of a number of people who spoke up in support of a motion to back the “Federal Council’s efforts in lobbying the relevant federal ministers to recognise that all rural and remote students should be automatically eligible for the Tertiary Access Allowance.”

Federal ICPA president Wendy Hick, Camooweal, is hopeful a desired outcome is near. 

She said the 2015/16 federal budget had some recommendations that will see the removal of the families asset test as well as the means test when children are applying for youth allowance.

“We’ve heard that that should actually be voted on soon in parliament and we’ve heard that there’s been no opposition to that so it looks like those changes might come through,” Ms Hick said.

If passed, she said it would be a “huge development for our rural and remote children because that actual assets and means test is one of the huge stumbling blocks our kids face when we talk about tertiary education; particularly in times of drought.”

“Families on the land tend to be assets rich, income poor,” she added.

So it’s a difficult thing for them because you can’t sell the tyre of the tractor to pay for their way through.”

If an individual is not eligible for youth allowance, they were also ruled out of a number of other scholarships and bursaries in many cases Ms Hick said.