Funding for a masters.

[Sadusername]

My eldest DD deferred doing a masters. (my advice in part). I had read that the government were going to introduce student finance for masters degrees. The article below refers to it and I am sure at the time there was information on the .gov site
www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-30293964
However I haven't really heard much since. Does anyone know if this is still going ahead or have any more information?

In the NW, the majority of the MAs are in the £3500/£4500 mark.

I don't work in the NW but picked out at random York:

www.york.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/fees-funding/taught/uk-eu-fees/

Most full time 1 year masters are close to £7000. Even at York some Masters are extremely expensive, e.g. £18600 for a Masters in Mathematical Finance!

I agree with hefzi that one should look very carefully at graduate courses, bearing in mind that Oxbridge and London often charge more for courses that are not necessarily better. Many prospective postgraduate students really don't seem to realise that undergraduate institution rankings are not relevant: the best university in the UK for a specific topic may well not be one of the usual suspects, i.e. Oxbridge or UCL, but a slightly lower ranked university. As hefzi mentioned, if a university has a DTC in a subject area, it is a very strong indication that they are very strong in that area.

hefzi it might be helpful to explain the shorthand. Your third paragraph is unintelligible to the casual reader.

And were there really non repayable bursaries for humanities subjects of £10k for entry 2015? I thought there were only loans (as distinct from bursaries) and only available only from 2016?

I guess students who've attended a competitive uni at undergrad are more likely to stay at the more competitive unis, that's the nature of things, even if they'd be completely happy to travel on buses, forego an en-suite and generally 'cut their cloth'. But the fees are the fees and inhibit access enormously, and will continue to do so. I think it's fair to say that the DD who did an Oxford masters after an Oxford undergrad was probably in a stronger position to get full funding for a four year PhD, so there may well be some medium/long term financial advantage in the bigger names. But the issue is the short term one, which £10,000 doesn't solve for those with no (ultra competitive) scholarship or no other financial support. It would have been better to make a loan available expressed as a percentage of the fees plus living costs at each institution I'd have thought.

I crossed posts with you disquisitiones. Unfortunate that DD3's specific subject of interest is especially well taught at UCL (according to her Oxford tutors). I'm sure she'd have been fine with a cheaper course elsewhere, but that's where the expertise seems to be just now and those are the fees: £13, 950. Plus extortionate London rents, since I don't live in London and can't provide free board.

Dd2 has changed to a different university for her masters that is much lower in the undergraduate rankings. Thankfully she was well advised by her third year tutor about where to apply as I felt it was difficult to find out which courses were worth taking. I was wary of it being a waste of money.

She is having a hugely positive experience on a well run course with fees of around £6000. She's in uni halls as well which are a bargain compared her previous city.

Doctoral training centre. And yes everyone who graduated having paid the higher fees was entitled to £10000 to do a masters degree in England starting in 2015. I did shout about it at the time, but most universities are having to give this money back to the funding council having tried desperately to give it away.....

I think it's fair to say that the DD who did an Oxford masters after an Oxford undergrad was probably in a stronger position to get full funding for a four year PhD, so there may well be some medium/long term financial advantage in the bigger names.

This is a bit of an over generalization.

Quite a few Oxbridge masters are cash cows for their departments. Of course a top student graduating from such a course will get good offers, but a medium student won't necessarily get better offers than they would have gotten after a masters from a place you don't call a "big name". This applies particularly for specialisms in which Oxbridge is top 5 or top 10 but not top 3.

It would have been better to make a loan available expressed as a percentage of the fees plus living costs at each institution I'd have thought.

But this would be utterly unfair, since Oxbridge and London courses are expensive but not better quality. 50% of the total costs at Bristol/Warwick/Exeter might be £8000 while 50% of the total costs in London might be £14k, with the London institution charging twice as much for a comparable course.

Why on earth should the student loan system subsidise London universities charging very high fees? Why should the loan system pay more for somebody studying at UCL if e.g. York had an equally or more respected programme in that specific subject? Since London and Oxbridge have so many international students who are paying even more, the onus is rather on them to use their international fees to make the costs more affordable for EU students.

Anyhow in reality if the system was a percentage of the fees then you can bet that universities would push up their fees to get the most out of the new system.

In that case why aren't the access conscious top whack unis doing precisely that disquisitiones.

titchy please could you explain exactly what was on offer? And was it for 2015 only and only for students paying £9k ie for those who started a three year course in 2012? Was it limited as to subject?

Yes 2015 intake only, any masters course, anyone who graduated in summer 2015 having paid the £9k fee. Any course. £10,000 for a FT student, £5000 for a PT one. Free. Not a loan, free money.

And I have to give back quarter of a million....

It would be fairer though disquisitiones, in that the Bristol student would only need to find £8,000 and the London student £14,0000. And the latter would have larger loan repayments than the former. On your 'fair' version the Bristol student only needs to find £6,000 but the London student £18,000, albeit with the same to repay. I'm not sure why that's fairer.

I timed my children badly :( I get the logic. What about students from less well off families who had bursaries for undergrad?

In that case why aren't the access conscious top whack unis doing precisely that disquisitiones.

(1) Because they aren't actually that access conscious.
(2) They would claim they do offer some scholarships.

London and Oxbridge postgraduate courses often make huge profits. These profits are mostly ploughed back into supporting undergraduate education and research, but this is also the case for postgraduate courses at many other universities.

If the government wants to start interfering more in HE (which it does), then forcing more uniform fees for comparable masters programmes would not be a bad step.

And if a student has to find £6k for Bristol and £18k for London I think they should ask themselves very seriously whether they are being ripped off by London courses and boycott them accordingly. London is charging the fees it does because it can get away with it, not because what it is offering is always better.

Back in the real world, students who want to pursue post-graduate education almost always have to make decisions based on the availability of funding. It's a pretty common scenario in the US for students to be offered different awards for different graduate schools, and to select according to the award offered. It's also common in the UK for prospective PhD students to be offered either 3 or 4 years funding, and select according to the funding offered. Losing PhD students to other institutions has forced certain "top" institutions to use their income from graduate taught courses to up their PhD offer and give fourth years. If UK Masters students started boycotting courses with absurdly high fees I would bet that those fees would come down to get student numbers up again.

a) Yes quite disquisitiones, about access. That was my point.

b) Taking DD3's masters course as an example, there are actually no scholarships offered whatsoever, apart from a small group of named ones all for overseas / commonwealth students. So they can't claim that.

Apart from the small matter of the funding, I think DD3 is intelligent enough to ask herself the value of the course and to seek advice from people whose judgment she trusts and has been told by her university tutors (who have no axe to grind) that this course has the best teachers for her particular specialist subject. Therefore the very high cost/ lack of scholarships/ lack of bursaries is extremely irksome. I doubt DD3's situation is unique. Your logic works only up to a point but it still seems fairer to me to use a more complicated methodology to allow for less well off students to access Oxbridge/ London for masters if that's where the best course for them is.

Molio - your post raises an important point that I have been pondering, given that DSS1 is applying for masters at the moment. You say that university tutors "have no axe to grind" ie give objective advice about masters courses. How can we know this to be true? Might they not have an agenda?

I find it very hard to believe that Oxbridge/London are ever the only choices.

I also find it very hard to understand why a 21/22 year old would be so set on one particular specialist subject and course. If this is really the only place in the world that does that subject, then one probably shouldn't do that subject at all. In reality, a number of places (UK and abroad) probably offer similar courses and (as an academic) I would struggle to believe that academics in one particular place were all better than those elsewhere. Note that in most fields one could look abroad for funded/cheaper masters courses and one would find very highly respected options.

I work in a field in which funded postgraduate positions are extremely over-subscribed: I can certainly take my pick of the very top students worldwide. A student who is interested in my field should (i) apply to a number of places and see who can offer funding and (ii) apply to other possibilities as a backup. I cannot imagine giving a student advice that only one place is a possibility for masters study for them. (And according to my family the same would be true in humanities as well.)

(By other possibilities I mean different subject areas.)

London is the destination of choice for a lot of students I know because they believe (rightly or wrongly) that it will be easier to find a job from a London base.

Bobo I guess in some contexts they might but this was seasoned Oxford tutors giving positive advice about colleagues at another university. As always with evidence, you need to assess the source!

disquisitiones I think you're getting the wrong end of the stick. The subject isn't niche but it is thought to be particularly well taught in a particular institution, which happens to be in London with high fees and no scholarships available for UK students. It also makes sense for her not to disappear to the extremities since there are other career related things she'll be pursuing in the smoke, not easy to replicate elsewhere. Anyhow, the real point is about access to masters' courses at Oxbridge and London and how far a flat rate of £10k actually helps.

Molio - wouldn't any tutor recommend their better student to apply to a course taught by their friends? Isn't there an incentive for the better universities to keep good students for themselves/swap their UGs among themselves? This is hypothesis on my part btw

Bobo that assumes that the academics in question are in fact friends, and there's no particular reason to suppose they would be. Also, there's a small matter of integrity, especially where dealing with students who may not have ready access to funds, and the academic is recommending a pricey course. It's all in the context. By the time a student is asking for advice they've probably got to know the measure of a tutor a bit, so they just have to judge for themselves.

There are, inevitably, tutors who have friends (former colleagues in the same department/university, former fellow UGs/PhDs etc) in other universities. It's not such a big world.

As for integrity - tutors have loyalty to their friends/colleagues and their own career as well as to passing students, surely?

I merely said they might not be friends. It's a very small world, but that doesn't mean you like all the people in it.

Integrity and loyalty are different and my own personal view would be that the interests of the student come first. Recommending a particular institution and course have no bearing on an academic career.

I am an academic at one of these pricey institutions. I think most academics will have a fairly good idea of where (at least most of) the strongest colleagues are in their sub field, I mean in terms of research. You don't necessarily know, however, how good or conscientious a teacher of MA students those colleagues are; and unless you have been an external examiner or taught in an institution yourself you almost certainly don't know how good an MA program is overall - I mean in terms of the actual teaching/support rather then reputation. For a PhD, students should prioritise match with supervisor above all, but for MAs it's much harder and more complex to advise, depending on balance between taught and research elements and so on, and also depending on career plans. If the MA is intended to increase the chances of getting a particular job/training scheme afterwards, then a mediocre and overpriced MA program which is nevertheless perceived as particularly impressive by the relevant employers may be a sensible investment. That's a very different decision than the one that faces a student who is serious about continuing to a PhD.

In any case, students should always try to speak to current/recent students of the program/department/supervisor they are considering.

kalidasa - thank you, your post is useful. DSS1 has spoken to a recent student on one of the courses he has applied to - I know only because I set up the meeting since said recent student is the son of a friend of mine - but I am not sure about the other courses and I will ask him whether he has.

Is there a way to find out which places are better than others for MAs if undergraduate rankings are irrelevant? Ds1 wants to do one next year after he graduates. If he stays where he is (London) there is a loyalty reduction from £9K to £5K. However he needs to do a professional qualification too so would be studying for a P/T masters and P/T prof exams but I have seen some courses which include the professional qualification but they are at low ranking institutions (in terms of undergraduate rankings) so he has dismissed them.

It would be really useful to have post grad rankings or some way of knowing the difference in calibre between them all.