How on earth can anyone afford a masters?

[sergeantmajor]

DS is an undergrad, considering doing a masters as it is needed for his most likely career path. I just looked up the tuition fees: £20-£30k for one year! I had assumed it would be comparable to an extra year of undergraduate fees which he could probably fund via part time work, rather than effectively doubling his student debt. It seems that there are various funding awards to apply for but I don't know how realistic it is to expect someone to swoop in to fund him. How do people do it?

As others have said, that's very expensive.
I run a masters and it's nowhere near that amount!!

Most are in line with what is available for the postgraduate loan.

DD is doing this so the extra year costs £9,250. She is at a top uni.

Mine was £12k and I self funded via salary sacrifice in my early 20s

Postgraduate loan through student loans.

I am now the proud owner of a plan 1 loan, a plan 2 and a postgrad loan.

But that is one expensive masters you've looked at.

A lot of the time you can get a discount if you do it the same place you did your undergrad.

Very sensible approach. I have said the same to my DC, who accept it.

A 'funded' Masters is worth a lot more than a self-funded one. To get funding, you have to be a) better than very good in your particular field; and b) very committed and focussed.

My husband's masters was funded. I'm doing mine now, funded by work.

Mine was funded by OfS, covered my fees, new laptop and about 800 quid a month

Exactly. Mine too, and half of it is paid for by student loans because i haven't done a Masters before.

That sounds like an MBA fee....what is the course OP?

"did a Ph.D. No masters needed."

This is presumably subject dependent. Funding for PhDs outside STEM can be brutally competitive. A Masters is often the minimum. Certainly in Economics, other applicants will have work and Research Assistant experience as well.

My father paid for his new wife’s masters, instead of paying anything towards me and my siblings’ undergraduate degrees.

His wife is a similar age to us. My brother rationed his food and got really thin, despite having a PT job and a loan for his degree.

Yes, I think that's right. DN did a (funded) PhD straight after her undergrad and now has a fabulous job abroad in a related field.

In DD2's area you'd have no chance of getting on a PhD without first having a Masters, none at all. Well you could, but it would have to be self-funded, you wouldn't get a stipend.

He would need a masters in Economics for a career as an economist. His undergraduate degree is covered by a student loan, and we have saved for years to cover his living cost (I know not everyone is able to do this). To cover an extra year was never part of the plan. I just looked up the fees for LSE and Cambridge, and the eyewatering sums quoted were definitely for UK students, not international. Gobsmacked! If anyone can recommend a website that collates all the funding options for masters, that would be fantastic.

Depends on the course - as far as I'm aware it's only Oxbridge that do combined Bachelor's/Master's, most people have to self fund or find a generously minded employer. Partner is currently trying to find a suitable course and I am still astonished at how many universities don't provide distance learning options (despite the fact that's pretty much all they actually offered during Covid) or who insist you're already employed in the sector for some vocational areas. While we were still part of the EU/ EEAA there were several completely funded courses in Europe (a friend did a Master's in Sweden, taught in English, only cost was two summer schools) but of course Brexit has put paid to that now.

Are you talking about integrated masters courses @RedHorsesAreDangerous ? If so, lots of non oxbridge unis do them. Dd currently doing one ( not oxbridge)
I did read though that some employers might prefer a separate degree and masters as you get more credits for the masters compared to the last year of an integrated course. Have no idea if this is true

@sergeantmajor econ is just a particularly expensive field as they figure the students will go on to be rich so they can gouge them now! I did a postgrad econ course (not quite masters level) at Birkbeck which is a bit more reasonably priced and as it’s an evening university you can work alongside. It obviously doesn’t have the same cachet or intellectual environment as LSE or Cambridge though.

Not sure about LSE as I wrote them off when I saw the fees but I know Cambridge have quite a lot of funding available: www.postgraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/funding

@Longtimenewsee I was thinking specifically of the days when they used to dish them out if you did an extra year at Oxbridge...(I didn't attend either university, this was based on colleagues around the same age as me). And to be fair, as partner already has a Bachelor's, we've only been looking for Master's courses, but those combined courses you mention might be really interesting for the nephews just about to come up to uni applying age.

Just a couple of general links/bits of information - findamasters.com might be of use; there's also the Grants Register and the Directory of Grant Making Trusts, your local large public library may have copies. When we have been looking for funding, some universities seem to have some additional bursaries/funding for STEM subjects in particular but I've not been able to track down any overarching website yet even though it looks as if there is some government involvement.

My twins' course fees this year are at full price £17k each twin (law) However they are not doing the masters option for which there is a loan although even with the masters loan it is capped at something like £12k so does not even cover the full fees never mind rent.

sergeantmajor, this is exactly what DS (and DH who is an economist) told me. And for some careers it does matter where you go, in that some aspects of economic research are very mathematical and employers will know which Universities/courses cover the ground.

The good thing is that salaries afterwards can be very high indeed. It essentially becomes an investment decision. Without crunching numbers, it is almost certainly a good investment to pick LSE, say, over many RG Masters courses.

I would get your DS to speak to the LSE, and to Cambridge. They will have come across this before. As I said earlier, two of DS' very able friends came from first generation immigrant/working class families who almost certainly could not have afforded the fees out of income.

www.moneysavingexpert.com/students/postgraduate-loans/ is only slightly helpful. It appears that government Career Development Loans are no longer exist but that some financial institutions are willing to give personal loans. (Or at least several came up on Google.) This sort of Masters is much more akin to law conversion courses or similar. It will be a year (or two) of very intense study to gain technical skills. Or take a gap year. Interalia DS and several of his friends were able to find work as Research Assistants, DS over the summer, once their had completed their UG degrees. And there is plenty of tutoring work, especially for someone able to support first year econ students struggling with first year compulsory quantitative courses.

He needs to scrutinise courses carefully. The LSE Masters is quite mathematical (indeed a generation back, DH did not apply for this reason.) Cambridge used to offer two Masters, one in Econ Research and the other straight Economics. I will probably be flamed, and perhaps correctly, but the latter is considered less rigorous, and perhaps more the territory of those willing to pay to have Cambridge on their CV. The Oxford Masters is very well regarded but two years, and UCL and Warwick would be worth a look, as their UG degrees are very well regarded. My recollection, from DS' applications was that LSE considered applications as they came in, and so it was worth applying early before the course filled up.

He will not have much, if any, time for paid work.

Integrated Masters course are definitely quite common in some fields of study – I believe engineering is one, and in those instances where it is structured to be part of the qualification in that way, it's valued just a highly as taking a separate Masters, though engineering is not an area I know much about!

If you are taking a separate Masters, personally I think changing universities shows greater initiative than merely doing another year where you did your under-grad, but I appreciate it can be quite a bit cheaper to stay at the same university.

@RedHorsesAreDangerous I’m not sure about Oxford but Cambridge only do integrated masters for natural sciences, maths, computer science, and engineering. What may be leading to some confusion is that Oxbridge award an MA a certain amount of time after matriculation. This isn’t an actual degree and no studying is done towards it, it’s to do with status/seniority in the university and is more of a historical quirk, although they still do it - I got mine recently.

Three of the companies I worked for (pharmaceutical) funded something like 35% of a masters and then people saved or took out car loans!

I might be wrong, but I'm fairly sure my friends got a student loan to cover theirs?
Also, finding an employer who will pay for it could be an option (depending on what it is)

Unfortunately, the top economics departments have realised that people are willing to pay silly money to get a standalone economics Masters from them on their CV.

If you look outside the top group of Oxbridge, LSE, UCL and Warwick, the fees are much lower. He should consider whether he really needs a Masters from one of the top names or whether his career ambitions would be served perfectly well with a Masters from Bristol (£11K) or Nottingham or Manchester (£13.5K) or any of the other excellent universities that are in the next tier down for economics. There does tend to be a salary premium that comes from attending a university in the top group, but not everyone is aiming for the very highest salaries or for an ongoing academic career.

Also look at scholarships offered by universities. For example, Warwick's MSc Economics is £25K for home students but there are various bursaries and competitive scholarships that can bring it down to £15K (so roughly in line with the cost at other universities), particularly if you meet any under-represented groups criteria. Oxford and Cambridge have a vast number of scholarships available. He needs to look for scholarships now as commonly applications for scholarships close at the end of May if not sooner.

If he will need a PhD for what he wants to do he should look at 1+3 or 2+3 combined Masters and PhD courses. There is more funding available for these courses, although it is competitive to get it. He is too late for this year for these as deadlines are usually in January.