Mature Student Physician Associate

littlePIG00 · 12 April 2024 at 2:28PM

I would like to get some clarity…and maybe some input from others also on this.

I am a mature student (40 years old).
No dependents. No children. Not married and no partner.
I own my property which comes with £16,000 worth of annual bills (mortgage, service charges, utilities, etc). That amount doesn’t even include food or travel - or food for my two cats.

Student finance, hypothetically speaking, will give me a loan of £9,900 for my course (because I live outside of London, and my university is also outside of London).
So its £9,900 per whole entire course.
So on a two year course, that’s £4,950 per year, paid in 3 installments.
NHS provide £5,000 for the course, at £2,500 per year that goes automatically towards my £11,650 annual tuition fee - making it a total of £9,150 remaining to pay.

If I’m permitted to pay by instalments, to coincide with SFL instalments, that still leaves me with an additional £1.5k to fund myself (at every installment).
On a full time, 5 days per week course.

Please someone tell me, if I am missing something (other than £16k that I also need to fund with no job).

And as a slap in the face, when I looked at grants - from the few that are available (based on my age, and chosen degree), I am not entitled to any of them because eligibility states “students who’s parents are doctors”. Seriously?!

Considering that NHS 10 year plan is to get more PAs into the NHS…how are they hoping to achieve this, if they pay tuition fee on other courses? Why are we not entitled to same funding as other students (med, dentistry, physiotherapists, nurses, etc)?

And from that I can see - despite BMA and GMC, there is no mention of additional funding.
Kick in the knee cap...when I worked for the NHS, I ended up in a lot of debt...Because I couldnt even apply for government assistance as I was told "you work full time". It just seems that couples, or those with children (understandably) are favoured more when it comes to assistance. But single, unmarried people, have to work for two people just to afford living. Where is the fairness in that? If one spouse looses their job, or income drops...they can make an application. Because the other spouse shouldn't be expected to feel the financial burden.

Hardship fund, I will apply for that when I am there...but they wont cover my mortgage and service charge monthly.

At this rate, my long dream of dedicating the rest of my working age to the NHS, and allowing them to utilise my generalist knowledge, seems just as that - a dream. Because no one is going to help at all. And you either run the risk of going to uni and becoming homeless and losing your home (that you worked 20 years to save for)...or you burnout from being at uni during the day and working nights, and potentially being a hazzard on the road and risking lives.