The Ultimate Masters Funding Overview (Everything You Need to Know!)

So how do you actually go about getting funding for a master's? Well the answer to this depends on your circumstances, your nationality and a whole host of other factors. So in this video we're going to break down your options. If you're a UK student then your usual first port of call is going to be the UK government postgraduate loans. These are available in all four UK nations. Which loan you apply to will depend on the country you're ordinarily resident in. It's not where you plan to study, it's where you currently live. So let's take a look at these one by one. First up the English postgraduate loan. This provides up to £12,167 towards the cost of your master's degree. You can borrow this amount regardless of your income or the cost of your course. Unlike at undergraduate level there's no separate maintenance loan, so it's up to you how you divide this money up between your tuition fees and your living costs. Your loan will be paid directly into your bank account in three instalments over the academic year. To apply for the English postgraduate loan you usually have to be a UK citizen who is ordinarily resident in England. This means you can't just have moved here to study. You have to be age 59 or younger when you start your course. You can't already have a master's degree or higher qualification. You must be planning to study a full master's degree worth 180 credits which can be taught or researched and you need to be studied full-time or part-time at any UK university. You can't get a loan for a shorter postgraduate level qualification such as a PG dip or PG cert or an integrated master's. Applications for English postgraduate loans generally open in the May before your courses do start and you can apply up to nine months after the beginning of your final year. Next up the Scottish postgraduate loan. The key difference between the English and Scottish loans is that the latter is divided into a tuition fee loan and a maintenance loan. Currently you can borrow up to £7,000 for your tuition fees and £4,500 for your living costs. From the 2024 academic year the total amount you're able to borrow will rise by £2,400 to total £13,900. Another important difference is that you can get a Scottish postgraduate loan for a postgraduate diploma as well as a taught or researched master's. Moving on to the Northern Irish postgraduate loans, these loans are only available for your tuition fee. They are paid directly to your university so you won't be able to borrow any towards your living costs. Currently you can borrow up to £6,500. You can use a Northern Irish postgraduate loan towards a full master's degree, a postgraduate diploma or a postgraduate certificate or even to top up a partial postgraduate qualification to a full one. You can also apply if you already have a postgraduate qualification but not if you've already received a postgraduate loan. Applications usually open the summer before your course starts. Like with English postgraduate loans you can apply up until nine months after the start of your final year. Finally let's take a look at the Welsh postgraduate loan system. So these work a little differently in that they are made up of a means-tested grant combined with a non-means-tested loan. So your funding can total up to £18,770. The higher your household income the lesser this will consist of a grant. So grants can be between £1,000 up to £6,885 and the rest would be covered by a loan. In the 2024 academic year grants will no longer be available for Welsh postgraduate degrees which means that the whole thing instead will be a fully repayable loan much like the English system. We don't know the exact amounts yet but we will let you know as soon as they're confirmed but you can sign up to our newsletter to get the latest news. You can't apply for a Welsh postgraduate loan if you already have a master's degree no matter how it was funded. You'll also need to be aged under 60 on the first day of your course. Welsh postgraduate loans are only available for full 180 degree master's degrees so this does not include a postgraduate diploma or a postgraduate certificate or higher like a PhD only for masters. Again applications will open the summer before your course starts and you can apply up until nine months after the start of your final year. If you've been paying attention so far you may have noticed that the postgraduate loan by itself won't cover all of your tuition and cost of living fees. This is why most master's students will choose to combine their loan with another source of funding so let's take a look at those alternative sources. So one way to top up your postgraduate loan is with funding from your university itself. These could be merit-based scholarships or needs-based bursaries. This funding can take the form of fee waivers or fee discounts especially if you're an alumni of that university. You may be able to get anything from 10 to 20 percent off your course fees. There are many charities and trusts in the UK that fund postgraduate degrees. Depending on the size of the organisation it may offer a small contribution towards your costs or significant amount of funding. You can browse opportunities online using turn to us or the alternative guide to postgraduate funding. If the course you're planning to study could help you qualify for a particular position or help you gain skills and will be valuable in a role, a prospective or current employer may be willing to sponsor your master's so it's worth having a conversation around what you might need with regards to costing and also time as well. This is most likely for vocational courses such as the Postgraduate Certificate in Education or the PGCE or those that are intended to aid in continuing professional development such as the Master's in Business Administration or otherwise known as the MBA. If you're an international student planning to study in the UK then how you go about getting funding will be slightly different. The first key thing to note is that you usually won't be eligible for the UK government's postgraduate loan. However there are some important exceptions, for example EU students with pre-settled status or indefinite leave to remain in the UK may be eligible for a postgraduate loan. A good place to start to check your status is the UK Council for International Student Affairs or UKISA. This doesn't mean there aren't plenty of options for international students so let's take a look at a few of them now. The UK government is keen to attract talent from abroad and has a number of scholarship schemes set up to do just that. Each scholarship is usually available for students of specific nationalities so it's worth looking at all of the eligibility criteria that they have. So one example is the prestigious Chevening Scholarship Scheme. Students from over 140 countries are eligible to apply for the Chevening Scholarship. Funding for Chevening Scholars is extremely generous, it covers your full tuition fees, travels and living expenses. On average scholarships are worth around £30,000 for a one-year master's. To apply you'll need to submit an online application including a 500 word essay. If you're successful you'll then be invited to an interview. Another really famous and sought after international scholarship is the Commonwealth Scholarship so there are around 800 of those awarded per year to citizens of developing Commonwealth countries. Like Chevening Scholarships these cover your tuition, your living costs and your travel expenses. In order to successfully apply for one of these you'll need to explain how your usual qualification have a positive impact on the development of your home country. There's also the Great Scholarships which are delivered by the UK government in collaboration with the British Council. They offer at least £10,000 towards tuition fees for a postgraduate degree. Note that you can't use any leftover funding to cover your living costs. Great Scholarships are only available to students from a handful of countries so make sure you check whether yours is on the list using our full guide linked in the description. Around 200 scholarships are awarded each year so it's well worth looking at to see if you can get it. It's also worth checking whether your home country offers any funding for students planning to study in the UK. These opportunities are often available through partnerships between the UK and other countries or broader exchange schemes. Examples of organisations offering funding for international students study in the UK include the Fulbright Commission which offers funding for US students and the German Academic Exchange Service which offers funding for German students. Many scholarships offered by universities will be open to international as well as UK students and some will be available specifically for international students. Scholarships might cover your partial or full tuition fees, living costs or sometimes even both so it's well worth having a look at. The best place to look is on your chosen university website but also speak to the international office at the university. It's worth looking at whether there are any charities and trusts offering funding for international students as well. As we mentioned earlier the amount of money you'll get can vary a lot depending on the size and budget of the organisation but some will offer a significant contribution to your study costs. You can browse funding opportunities in the grants register which you can find in UK libraries or online using term2us or the alternative guide to postgraduate funding which we've linked below. We hope you've enjoyed this quick overview of funding options for master's students in the UK. There's much more to say than what we've covered here so we've covered it in detail in guides on our website which we've linked some below to help get started. Best of luck!