Just what funding is available for clinical students?

NHS student bursaries are available to students on pre-registration health professional training courses, which include students in their fifth or sixth year of studying medicine. A fees-only bursary from the NHS covers tuition fees, and these are paid directly to the university, much like Student Finance pay for any other home or EU undergraduate’s tuition fees. Students do not have to pay this back. The NHS also has an “extra weeks” allowance, that provides £107 per week when academic years are longer than 30 weeks (excluding holidays).

For living costs, the government maintenance loan available for current fifth year students is £3,263, and for final year students is £2,498. This isn’t means tested.

There is also an additional bursary available that is allocated to students based on the income of their family home. Students in both years can claim up to £5,868.

Medical students in their clinical years are not eligible for Imperial’s own bursary scheme, which is described on the Imperial website as “One of the most generous of all UK Universities.”

Imperial has recently altered its bursary scheme for the 2015 academic intake, although not without controversy. After announcing the initial plans to award more money to students from higher income households, at the expense of those who come from households that have less money, Imperial College Union Council denounced the alterations as “Anti-Robin Hood.”

Despite this outcry, students starting Imperial in 2015 from low-income families are still eligible to receive £6,000 in bursary alone for the first four years of their degree. When factoring in maintenance loans and grants, the maximum amount of money students could receive exceeds £15,000, despite Imperial also stating that undergraduates should expect to live off £11,223 (for a 39-week long academic year).

The maximum students can therefore claim in loans and bursary funding is £9,131 for those in fifth year, and £8,366 for sixth year students.