Alternative doctoral loans

MalMonroe

Dr_Crypto said:

It’s been a good while since I was at university but all PhDs were funded as far as I remember unless it was someone from an ultra wealthy family doing history of art of something and even then the quality of student required for a Phd was such that it was very uncommon.

What absolute nonsense.

Clive_Woody

MalMonroe said:

I don't know where everyone is getting the idea that PhDs are usually funded, they're not! And never have been in my experience. I was a university administrator for 15 years and have also studied for my own degrees.

There's some useful info here : https://www.gov.uk/funding-for-postgraduate-study

The university where you studied for your Bachelors and Masters Degrees should have information about funding for PhDs, you could start by asking there.

Not sure where you worked as an admistrator, but I think most people saying PhD places were funded, are speaking from experience, I certainly was.

My PhD was funded, including a stipend and so were all of the PhDs in the dept (this was at Cardiff med school). My wife’s PhD was funded at Brum university, a good friend did her’s at Bath university and that was also fully funded/sponsored. 

I have worked for a number of pharma companies who fund PhD placements and have engineering friends who did PhDs all around the country who were also funded. I could go on.

Possibly this is down to interpretation of “funding”, but from considerable experience I would say most PhD places are funded. The idea of a student having to self fund their PhD would be prohibitive. 

Anamox

It would be fairly reasonable to assume that the OP is intelligent enough to know that their PhD isn't funded, hence the request for financial advice.

People do pay for their own PhDs and people do get funded to do their PhD. The OP is obviously the former.

Flowerinjannah

There are many groups on Facebook for scholarships. Try posting there. 

Voyager2002

Clive_Woody said:

Not sure where you worked as an admistrator, but I think most people saying PhD places were funded, are speaking from experience, I certainly was.

My PhD was funded, including a stipend and so were all of the PhDs in the dept (this was at Cardiff med school). My wife’s PhD was funded at Brum university, a good friend did her’s at Bath university and that was also fully funded/sponsored. 

I have worked for a number of pharma companies who fund PhD placements and have engineering friends who did PhDs all around the country who were also funded. I could go on.

Possibly this is down to interpretation of “funding”, but from considerable experience I would say most PhD places are funded. The idea of a student having to self fund their PhD would be prohibitive. 

Quite a bit of confusion here.

The majority of students doing a PhD are funded by someone else, in the ways that Clive mentions. This is partly because the total cost of funding a PhD is prohibitively high for most individual people, while banks and others are aware that the return on investment is rather poor so that the chances of getting repaid are low. Student loans have never been available for PhD study.

However, there are many academics who would gladly supervise a PhD but cannot arrange funding, and many would-be scholars who can get themselves accepted as PhD students but not arrange funding. And some universities have considerable success in attracting self-funded PhD students.

Shakin_Steve

Isn't this a loan for PhD study?

https://www.gov.uk/doctoral-loan

Voyager2002

Shakin_Steve said:

Isn't this a loan for PhD study?

https://www.gov.uk/doctoral-loan

Looks like it: in which case it is new.

Dr_Crypto

MalMonroe said:

Dr_Crypto said:

It’s been a good while since I was at university but all PhDs were funded as far as I remember unless it was someone from an ultra wealthy family doing history of art of something and even then the quality of student required for a Phd was such that it was very uncommon.

What absolute nonsense.

Really? That was exactly how it worked when I was at University. I only came accross one self-funder and they were exactly what I described - a super rich international student. 
I've never heard of anyone self-funding a PhD in the medical field, which is where I work.