The low SES student moved to Canberra to study Asian Studies and Law in 2014 and has had her Youth Allowance payments cut off on seven separate occasions.

Bureaucratic hurdles and administrative bungles seemed endless. But the system's failings hit hardest when the 21-year-old's payments stopped for five weeks when she was completing a university subject in Singapore.

"It is really scary to suddenly stop receiving payments while in a strange country, when I needed money most urgently and had no other means of getting any," she said.

Miss Khan is just one of many ANU students sharing their Centrelink horror stories as part of an ANU Students' Association campaign launched this week.

The campaign highlights the human cost of the government's plan to raise $4 billion through changes to the welfare system.

ANU student association education officer Jessy Wu said in 2016 Youth Allowance payments were delayed for up to four months as Centrelink buckled under the demands of 80,000 backlogged applications.

With the 2017 academic year in sight, students were bracing for worse.

"Students are not dole bludgers, they are preparing themselves for the workforce and they will be paying back their Youth Allowance in spades via taxes once they enter the workforce," she said.

"The price for income support should not be endless days of paralysing stress and worry."

Centrelink automatically suspended Timothy Friel's payments and issued him with a debt recovery notice after noticing a discrepancy between his declared income and the ATO records.

The 22-year-old graduate, now in full-time work, said he spent hours explaining his employer hadn't yet provided him a pay slip, but was slapped with the $400 debt notice anyway.

"They system is meant to be there to help people but I was missing classes and tutes just to sort things out," he said.

"The hope is to have a system that people can utilise to break free of being on a low income background."

Ms Wu said reform was sorely needed to ensure income study support was steadfast and that there was not a repeat of 2016 where vulnerable students across the country dropped out or deferred subjects to cope with financial stress.

The ANUSA has a range of services to assist students including a $500 emergency grant, accommodation, grocery vouchers and student meals. In 2016 the association assisted 61 students with Centrelink issues.

"It compromises student's ability to study effectively and delays their graduation which means that it slows down the process by which they could enter the workforce and contribute back," she said.

"It seems it is a system that is not well designed and there are cuts being made for short term gain without looking to the fact that supporting students as they are going though university is actually better for our budget bottom line."

Watch the campaign unfold and read further student testimonies throughout the week on the ANUSA Facebook account.