Funding arrangements for English graduates

The funding arrangements for Graduate Entry students are complicated. The funding you receive will completely depend on your individual circumstances and this section is only offered as an overview. You should always check your eligibility and contact your local education authority to find out what you are entitled to.

Differences between 4 and 5 year courses

If you are an English graduate studying in England, the funding you will get depends on the type of degree you do. If you are studying on a graduate entry (4 year programme) you will receive NHS funding from the second year of your course. If you study on a 5 or 6 year course you will only receive funding from the 5th year onwards. For the other years you can apply for funding from your Local Education Authority (LEA), who award student loans. The funding arrangements for the LEA years and the NHS years is explained in more detail below.

LEA funding

There are essentially three sources of LEA funding for a degree:
1. A maintenance loan - what most people call a student loan.
2. A maintenance grant - a non-repayable grant which is only available to those with lower incomes.
3. A tuition fee loan - which is paid directly to the university to cover fees.

As a graduate medical student, you are only eligible for the maintenance loan, you are not entitled to a maintenance grant or a tuition fee loan.

Provided you meet the eligibility criteria (mostly based on being normally resident in England for 3 years), you should get at least around £3470 in maintenance loan. This portion of the loan (75%) is non-means tested, so everyone who is eligible should get this much.

You can get more than this if your household income is below £72,000. The most you can get is £4625 per year and you will get this if your household income is below £61,000. If your income is between £61,000 and £72,000 you will get something in between (see page 15).

You will have to pay your own tuition fees upfront for the LEA funded years. For 2008, tuition fees were £3145 per year in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and £2700 in Scotland (see page 11).

Therefore, the cost of tuition fees is likely to cancel out most of the maintenance loan and you will have to find private funding to cover your living expenses for the years funded by the LEA.

NHS funding

For the years that are funded by the NHS, you won't have to pay your tuition fees at all (as long as you qualify for the NHS funding, which is usually based on residence in England). Tuition fees are paid straight to the university and you don't have to pay them back.

In the years funded by the NHS, you can only get about half the maintenance loan from your LEA. This means that your student loan income will be reduced to about £2300.

If your household income is below £50,000 you will also get an NHS bursary, which is a non-repayable grant from the NHS. If your income is below £23,664 you will get the full bursary of £2739. If it is between £23,664 and £50,000 you will get some of the bursary.

So how much will I get and how much will I need?

Essentially, you will be much better off in the years funded by the NHS. For this reason, the graduate entry courses are financially a much better option as 3 out of 4 years are NHS funded. When you add an extra year studying on a 5 year course versus earning a junior doctor wage (currently around £28,000 depending on the shifts you work), the difference between the two is even more dramatic.

Depending on where you live and your lifestyle, you can expect to need about £8000 to live on each year. Obviously you may be able to manage on less than this if you are careful with your money but it is probably a realistic budget. This will mean that you will have to find extra money to support yourself. Below is a rough guide to the amount of money you may get based on 2008 funding.

Graduate entry course (4 years)

Standard course (5 or 6 years)

Personal loans for medical school

Several banks will lend medical students money to cover their costs. Click on the links below for further information.

Natwest

Lloyds TSB

Barclays