Postgraduate student loans in Scotland

CONTENTS

1. Postgraduate loans in Scotland 2024/25

2. Are you eligible for postgraduate funding from Scotland?

3. Is your course eligible for postgraduate funding?

4. Postgraduate finance for EU and international students

5. How to apply for postgraduate funding in Scotland

6. Repaying your loan

Postgraduate loans in Scotland 2024/25

If you’re a student from Scotland, you may be entitled to combined funding of £13,900 to cover the whole of your course. This can be for a postgraduate diploma or master's study, but your course must be in Scotland unless it's not available at a Scottish university.

The postgraduate loan is formed of two parts:

• Tuition fee support of up to £7,000 – if your fees are lower than this, your uni will receive the appropriate amount
• Living cost support of up to £6,900 for full-time students – students on part-time courses aren’t eligible for this loan

If your tuition fees are above £7,000, you'll need to pay the difference yourself. Full-time students who get the living cost loan could in theory use some of it towards tuition fees, but it’s important to make sure you have enough to live on.

The living cost loan isn’t means-tested, so you can apply for the maximum amount regardless of your financial income. £2,400 of the loan is designated a 'special support loan', meaning that amount won't reduce state benefits for students entitled to welfare support, such as lone parents or some disabled students.

You can also apply for other funding such as from charitable trusts or claim Disabled Students' Allowances (DSA) if applicable. If you’re eligible for DSA and want to take out a tuition fee loan, you should apply for the loan before submitting your DSA application.

Childcare support may be available from your university if you’re studying full-time, but funding is limited so not all eligible students get help.

If you already have an undergraduate loan to pay off, repayments will only be taken if your income is above the income threshold. Your postgraduate loan doesn’t count as income for previous loan repayments.

Are you eligible for postgraduate funding from Scotland?

To be eligible for a postgraduate loan, you must:

• Be a UK national, Irish citizen or have ‘settled status’ or ‘pre-settled’ status i.e. with no restriction on how long you can stay in the UK
• Normally live in Scotland. If you moved to Scotland for undergraduate study, you're not considered 'ordinarily resident' if you progress straight into postgraduate study
• Have lived in the UK and Islands for the three years immediately before your course begins
• Be 60 years old or below when starting your course to be eligible for living cost support. There's no age restriction on the tuition fee loan.

After Brexit, residency is complex and there are exceptions to the above. Some students who haven't lived in the UK for the required three years before starting their course may only be eligible for a tuition fee loan. Check with the Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS) for details.

Your personal eligibility will also depend on your previous studies and funding:

• If you studied a postgraduate course before, you are unlikely to be eligible for tuition fee support, even if you paid for the course yourself. You may be able to apply for a living cost loan if you are studying a full-time course.
• If you are studying social work, you may get funding from the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC). If you aren't eligible for this, you may be able to apply for a postgraduate loan.
• Graduate-entry pre-registration nursing courses may be eligible for the Nursing and Midwifery Student Bursary.

Is your course eligible for postgraduate funding?

To be eligible for postgraduate funding, your course must be:

• A postgraduate diploma or taught or research-based master's degree
• At level 11 on the Scottish Credit Qualification Framework (SCQF)
• Provided by an approved Scottish uni or higher education institution, or at another UK university (but only if you study full-time and your course isn’t available in Scotland)

Suitable qualifications include postgraduate diplomas, MSc, MA, MPhil, MRes, LLM, MLitt, MFA, MEd and MBA.

Courses that aren’t eligible include:

• Postgraduate certificates
• Postgraduate Diploma in Education (covered by undergraduate funding)
• Research master's degrees integrated into a doctoral course. There is no loan in Scotland for doctoral study

Intercalated master’s

You may be able to get support if you’re taking a year out of a degree such as medicine, dentistry or veterinary medicine to do a postgrad course as an intercalated degree. Check with your university or SAAS for details.

Distance learning

Your course can’t be exclusively online or by distance learning. A minimum amount of 'contact time' or teaching is required between the student and teaching staff at the university.

Length of course

It can be a full- or part-time course. Postgraduate diplomas mustn’t be more than one year full-time, and master's courses no longer than two years full-time. Part-time courses shouldn’t be more than twice as long as the equivalent full-time course. If there’s no full-time equivalent, contact SAAS for guidance.

Postgraduate finance for EU and international students

After Brexit, students from the EU aren’t likely to be eligible for a UK student loan. See our page on student finance eligibility for more on how Brexit has affected EU students.

International students are also unlikely to qualify for a loan unless they have the right to permanently reside in the UK, e.g. having refugee status. However, there are often scholarships and bursaries for international students studying at postgraduate level, so check what your university has on offer.

How to apply for postgraduate funding in Scotland

You can apply online to SAAS.

Applications can be made anytime from 1 April until the closing date of 31 March (although there's an earlier cut-off date for the tuition fee loan). To receive funding by the start of your course you’ll need to apply by the end of June.

Tuition fees are paid directly to the university, while the loan for living costs is paid to you.

Repaying your loan

Repayments for Scottish postgraduate loans follow the same system as Scotland's undergraduate loans (Plan 4). If you already have a Scottish undergraduate loan, the two debts will be combined and paid via one payment each month.

The amount you need to pay back each month is determined by your income. From April 2024, you’ll repay 9% of all income over the threshold of £31,395. This threshold changes each year. (From April 2025 it is likely to rise to £32,745, the highest repayment threshold in the UK).

So, if your salary is £40,000, you’ll earn £8,605 over the Plan 4 annual threshold. Your repayments will be 9% of this – a monthly payment of around £65. If you have an undergraduate and a postgraduate Plan 4 loan, you won’t need to pay any more. Instead, what you pay is split between repayments for each loan.

Interest is charged on the loan in line with the Retail Prices Index (RPI) but there's a 'low interest cap' which means it can drop when Bank of England interest rates are cut.

You’re eligible for your first repayment in April after you graduate from your course, but only once your earnings are above the income threshold. You’ll still need to repay any borrowed money even if you choose not to complete a course. If you withdraw from your studies in the first four months, you'll have to pay the tuition fees yourself.

The balance of the loan will be cancelled 30 years after it becomes liable for repayment.