UCAS & Careers news from Mrs Lacey

Hello, last week we talked a little about student finance and so I thought that we could continue on that theme and have a look at bursaries – which are not unlike new style apprenticeships.

Yesterday I received an email from Army Recruitment telling me about the bursaries that they offer. I was surprised to see that there was such a wide range available, starting with the Army Undergraduate bursary at £2,000 per year and going up to the Professionally Qualified Officer (PQO) bursary at £75,000. PQOs are available to potential Medical, Dental, Veterinary, Nursing and Allied Health Professional Officers. PQOs are paid in instalments, as a salary in effect, during the final three years of professional study, with another lump sum paid on successful completion of military training.

This got me thinking; I found that these are not the only bursaries available. As you might expect, the RAF and Navy also offer equivalent medical and dental bursaries and all three services also pay engineering bursaries. Bursaries from the services come with a requirement for significant commitment from the student, medical, dental and engineering officers are members of a fighting force, which is definitely something to be born in mind. The medical bursaries require that foundation years 1 and 2 be completed in uniform as serving officers and there are similar requirements for other fields.

The NHS, obviously, also offers funding for medical and dental students and some law firms offer financial support with university studies. According to the Scholarship Hub (link below) “many organisations offering scholarships often struggle to get enough applicants” so I have added links below to the UCAS guide and the Scholarship Hub guide. It might well be worth taking a look.

UCAS Scholarships and additional finance

Guide to UK scholarships

As always, don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions or enquiries.

Kim Lacey, UCAS and Careers