Postgraduate Loans in Scotland | Postgraduate Funding

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Administered and applied for through the Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS), a postgraduate loan is a non-means-tested tuition fee loan.

If you intend to study an eligible masters degree (180 credits) or postgraduate diploma (120 credits) over two or three years, you may be eligible for a loan of up to £7,000 towards your entire qualification, split pro rata over the number of years you will be studying.

You’ll need to meet the SAAS general and residence eligibility conditions.

To give you an idea of what this means, you’ll need to:

There’s no upper age limit, and you can apply whether you’re employed or not.

Please note: postgraduate certificates (60 credits) are not eligible for the tuition fee loan.

Your loan will be paid directly to The Open University (OU). The amount of loan you’ll receive each academic year depends on your qualification and its intended duration.

If you don’t use all your available loan in one year, the balance will not carry over to the next.

Please note: the loan may not cover the full cost of your fees, so you may need to pay the difference using an alternative payment method.

You’ll repay your loan the April after you graduate or leave the qualification.

Repayments will only start once your salary exceeds the income threshold, which is currently £32,745 per year, £2,728 per month or £629 per week. Once you earn over the threshold, you’ll repay 9% of your income in affordable monthly instalments.

For example, if you earn an annual salary of £36,000, you’ll repay only £292.95 that year (9% of £3,255). That’s just £24 a month.

Interest will be applied to your loan from the date the first payment is made to us.

You can find out more about repayments on the Student Loan Repayment website.

You’ll need to apply directly through the SAAS website. Postgraduate funding applications are completed and submitted entirely online.

Take care to apply for the correct number of years of loan support. Consider carefully the number of years you’ll be studying over, taking into account the structure of your qualification and the modules you would like to study each academic year. If you’re unsure about the length of your course, contact Student Fees (Scotland) by email at [email protected].

SAAS may take up to 28 days to process your application, and they may contact you directly if they require any additional information.

Once SAAS has approved your loan, they’ll provide you with an award letter, which you can download from your online SAAS account.

After you've reserved a place on your chosen module, send us a copy of your module registration agreement, SAAS award letter and any additional payment (if required) by the final enrolment date of your first module.

You can send documents by email to [email protected].

Please note: we cannot accept credit or debit card details via email.

You can also contact us if you require further support.