Student Loans Company
Postgraduate students in England are being encouraged to apply now for student finance, as the application service launches for the 23/24 academic year.
The Student Loans Company (SLC) paid over 1.5 million students more than 22bn in maintenance loans, grants and tuition fees in the last completed academic year (21/22). As students start to prepare for the upcoming academic year, the message from SLC is to submit applications as early as possible, so that their funding will be ready for the start of term.
Postgraduate students can apply for a Postgraduate Masters Loan or a Postgraduate Doctoral Loan depending on the type of qualification they will be studying for. Prospective students dont need to have a confirmed place on a course at university or college to make their application, as the course details can be updated as the course details are confirmed.
Jackie Currie, Interim SLC Executive Director of Operations, said: Deciding to pursue study through to postgraduate education is a big decision for every potential student and theres a lot to organise and manage before their course starts. Many students taking up postgraduate study will already be familiar with how to apply for students finance and my message to them is to make sure that they get their finance applications in as soon as possible. That means we can ensure everything is in place for the next step of their academic journey.
Postgraduate Loans are available to help with living costs and tuition fees are paid directly to a students bank account. Students studying for a masters will receive a loan of 12,167 and those studying a doctoral degree will receive 28,637.
Loan entitlements are dependent on individual student circumstances, as postgraduate courses can vary in length and can also be studied part time. If the course lasts for more than a year, the loan will be divided equally across each year of your course. Prospective students can find more info at https://www.gov.uk/masters-loan or https://www.gov.uk/doctoral-loan
Unlike loans for higher education, postgraduate students only need to apply for student finance once and are not required to submit an application for each year of their course.